Secrets Don't Stay Buried

Xandra Kallan

After arguing with the airlines to reschedule her flight, I was thrown off kilter when I discovered Sasha had arrived in town, two days earlier than she’d told me.

Why did she lie to me?

And what was she doing here for two whole days before my surprise birthday party?

Sash, you have a lot of explaining to do.

Putting my anger aside, I paced back and forth nervously, waiting for Sasha’s blood results. Looking across the room at her, she had fallen into an incoherent sleep. I couldn’t believe my twenty-three-year-old sister was unrecognizable, withering away before my very eyes. The thought of our last memory being one of us fighting was destroying me on the inside. The last thing I wanted was for our last words to each other to be ones of anger.

Sasha, please come back to me!

A knock on the door ended my mental torture and pacing.

“Hello, Miss Kallan, I’m Dr. Sanders. I’ll be taking over Sasha’s case.” He put out his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Sanders,” I said, shaking his offered hand with a smile.

He was a good-looking man, probably in his mid-thirties, approximately five feet, ten inches tall with dark skin, brown eyes, black hair, and a clean-cut beard.

“I have a definitive diagnosis. It appears Sasha is suffering from portal hypertension, secondary to advanced cirrhosis of the liver. Also, she tested positive for hepatitis B, and there was a trace of MDMA found in her blood.”

I repeatedly blinked, unable to accept the information given to me. Hepatitis? X?

Felipe, that fucking bastard!

My sister was a lot of things, but she was no druggie. Either Felipe or the bartender must have slipped her the X. I was enraged. I knew there was something deceitful about him and that club. Troubled by my thoughts, nausea soon bubbled in my stomach, alerting me to sprint to the bathroom before my vomit ended up all over Dr. Sanders.

“Are you okay, Miss Kallan? Should we talk about this later?”

Pulling myself together, I flushed the toilet, washed my hands, patted my face, took in a deep breath, and exhaled through my nose.

“No, I’m fine; just give me a minute.” Regaining control, I stepped out. “Where do we go from here as far as treatment is concerned?”

“Unfortunately, she is not a desirable candidate for interferon and ribavirin treatment. Her liver is severely damaged, and the only option at this point would be a liver transplant.”

“This is absurd, other than being slightly intoxicated, she was completely fine less than ten hours ago,” I said in a state of disbelief, wedging my hands in my hair.

“I apologize, Miss Kallan, I don’t know what to tell you,” he said, showing me the lab work.

My phone vibrated inside my jacket pocket.

“Detective Kallan. It’s Riley, do you have a moment to chat? I have imperative information pertaining to the seven case.”

I asked him to hold on for a minute and politely excused myself from Sasha’s room.

I stood outside the door with my hand on my hip. “I’m listening.”

He let out a lengthened sigh before speaking. “The bodies were identified as our girls. I put the reports from their autopsies on your desk. Detective Somers and I will notify their families this evening and ask them to confirm.” He took a brief pause, which allowed me to catch my breath. “We also have six other people that were reported missing within the last ten hours...Xandra, they are all men.”

All men…

7+6=13. What the...?

I shook my head not wanting to think about the possibility of more dead bodies turning up. “Sir, I have a suspicion this underground club called Voodoo may have something to do with this case. Sasha, Hendrik, and I were there last night. It’s located underneath the old warehouse. Detective Hendrik is in the process of obtaining a search warrant from Magistrate Garrison. Also, we are meeting with a possible witness this afternoon.”

“Wow...well, I’m not surprised. You two are always right on the money. I’ll send reinforcements out once we have the search warrant in hand. Excellent work, detective.”

“Thanks.” I breathed, trying to force back my tears.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“Sasha...she’s...”

“Xandra?”

The tears began to pour from my eyes. “She’s in the hospital...she needs a liver transplant.”

Silence lingered for what seemed like an eternity.

“Oh my God...Xandra, I’m so sorry. If there’s anything, I mean anything I can do, don’t hesitate to call me, okay?”

“Actually, could you run a name through the database for me? He was with Sasha last night.”

“Yes, of course, what’s the name?” My mind shifted back to the day we were at the spa.

Come on, Xandra what is his last name?

After that, the image of his business card on the counter popped into my mind.

Yes, that’s it!

“Felipe Gonzalez.”

He hesitated slightly, which I found to be rather odd. “I’ll hop to it.”

“I appreciate it, sir, goodbye.”

Back in Sasha’s room, Dr. Sanders was assessing her vitals when I approached him.

He turned to face me. “She’s stable for now, but without a liver transplant soon, her health will deteriorate. I can put her name on the waiting list, or would you be interested in being a live donor?”

“I’ll donate part of my liver.” Why wouldn’t I? She was my sister after all; I would die for her.

“Excellent, I’ll have the nurse come in later to draw some blood.” I nodded, and he exited the room.

When the nurse left with my blood sample, I fell to my knees. Holding Sasha’s hand in mine, I sobbed an endless river of tears until I felt hands around my waist, lifting me to my feet. It was Liam, his eyes watering with sympathy. He took me into his arms, hugged me, and caressed the small of my back, making my tears stop instantly.

How does he do that?

He always knew the right buttons to push to alleviate my pain. His hands were magic.

“I don’t understand how this happened; she seemed fine last night. How did we not realize she was sick?” he asked, in a whisper to himself.

“That’s it; she was in perfect health before Felipe came into the picture and infected her with his disease. That prick gave her hepatitis B...”

He glanced down at me, eyes wide, jaws tight, looking appalled. “No way.”

“Yeah, how they were able to detect it so soon, I have no clue.”

He shook his head.

“It gets worse—”

“Worse?” he gave me a sideways glance.

I paused, giving him a moment to absorb what I’d already told him. Poor Liam, his head looked like it was about to pop off. After informing him about everything else, his jaw dropped in shock. Speechless, he ran his hand roughly through his slick hair, lowering himself down onto the recliner next to her bed.

“I told you we might catch something,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood.

“You’re always right, aren’t you?” He lifted his head to look up at me with a weak smile, stood up, and embraced me again. “Unfortunately for that bastard, we will have a search warrant by this afternoon,” he whispered, planting a tender kiss on my forehead. The simplest kiss from him made everything right in the world, even if it was for that one second.

“Which reminds me...we should leave. We have to be at that lady’s house by noon.” I bent down to Sasha and placed a soft kiss on her forehead because I knew from experience how good it felt to receive one from someone you cared about. Someone you loved. Someone you considered to be your world. Both were my world, and I couldn’t imagine a world without them in it. “I won’t stop until he receives every ounce of pain you endure,” I whispered.

***

 “This is it,” he sighed, as we drove up to her white, cottage-style home with red shutters. Taking a quick glance around, I could see the neighborhood was a ghost town, which made my skin crawl.

Something is wrong with this picture...

Liam's knock creaked the door open. We glanced at each other puzzled. Alarmed, Liam raised his Glock 19 from his holster, stepping into the house first while I cautiously trailed behind him with my gun cocked. Inside, we came face to face with a dark-brown staircase with a segmental archway to our right, leading to what looked like the living room. Searching around, I noticed a clutter of mail on a cappuccino, end table by the stairs. Placing my gun back into my holster, I took out some latex gloves and pulled them over my hands. Liam kept watch, as I scanned over the envelopes, eventually finding her name.

Una Rosenthal.

“Mrs. Rosenthal, Detectives Hendrik and Kallan are here to see you.” My voice echoed amongst the devastation of silence, and hearing a sudden noise coming from our right, averted our attention down the hall. Cautiously, we stepped into a country-style living room, the floorboards creaking under our careful steps as we observed our surroundings.

When I was in plain view of the kitchen, I noticed a pot of water boiling over on the stove. Next to the pot were three, classic, white tea mugs neatly placed on the counter. Walking in, I turned off the stove and saw a variety of Danishes arranged on a clear tray on top of the round wood dining table.

“She has to be here somewhere,” I said, in a perplexed tone. “I'll check upstairs.”

He answered with a slight nod.

I made my way up the staircase, holding the gun extended in front of me. At the top of the stairs, I was met by a hallway with three doors—all closed. One at the end of the hall with the other two on each side.

Modern, gold photo frames with floral ornaments lined the peach-colored wall to my left. Studying them as I walked past, the first two were pictures of what I believed were her children or grandchildren. Reaching the end, I never anticipated seeing what I saw next; my muscles tensed, and I took a hard gulp.

Mom!

The picture was taken uptown, in front of the Groverton Science and Art Museum. Examining the photo closer, I saw my mother wearing a necklace I'd never seen before, with an old-fashioned key attached to it. In the photo, my mother and Mrs. Rosenthal appeared to be close; their arms were wrapped around each other while smiling.

Why didn't my mother ever mention Mrs. Rosenthal to me?

Right then, the door behind me squeaked open, causing my heart to skip a beat. My arms shot up, pointing the gun in the direction of the door. I peered in to find the bedroom empty. Bracing myself, I entered slowly with dread pumping through my veins. Her bedroom was home to an endless collection of books, and a double-wide bookcase, covering the majority of the wall, held an extensive variety of the occult genre.

Interesting...

Mrs. Una Rosenthal was a woman with secrets. Dark ones.

A sudden chill instantly dropped the temperature of the room at an alarming rate. I knew I wasn't alone anymore. Paralyzed with fear, I struggled to pry my jaws apart wide enough to voice Liam's name. My breath was stolen from me when I felt something sweep over my left cheek and a shivering-cold sensation on the nape of my neck. Taking a hard gulp, I mustered up the courage to unglue my feet from the floorboards. Brave as I could possibly be at that moment, I turned. A face of a malevolent shadow met my stunned eyes. Towering over me; cold-aired growls flowed viciously from its mouth. Green eyes brighter than mine burned into me like they wanted to set my body, my soul on fire. Yet, at the same time, the shadow's power, made every muscle, bone, and vein in my body feel like ice.

Was this the shadow figure I’d seen the other night?

With my heart skipping several beats at a time, I gasped in terror, finally able to force Liam's name from my throat. The shadow didn't move; it just continued to stare at me. Killing me slowly. Finding I was stiff as a board, unable to escape - my only defense was to squeeze my eyelids shut and pray Liam had heard my weak cry for help.

 Seconds later, my eyelids flew open when someone's delicate touch brushed over my cheek. The feeling of warmth released me from my state of paralysis, and the shadow figure of evil vanished.

“Baby, what's wrong?”

“Liam...something strange just happened to me.” I began to tremble with violence. I didn't even believe what I saw, how could I possibly expect him to?

“Tell me what happened, Xandra.” He searched my eyes intently, hoping to find the answer within them. His hands traveled up my arms to my cheeks.

“I encountered a spirit of some kind. I know that sounds ridiculous, but you have to believe me, Liam,” I uttered, through the tremors invading my body. His look spoke for him; he thought I had lost my mind.

“Xandra, I think everything that's going on with Sasha and the case is affecting you more than you'd like to admit. Maybe, you need to take a little break from all this, babe.”

I shouted. “I'm not fucking crazy, Liam, what I saw was real.”

“Okay, where is this so-called spirit you speak of now?” He mocked me, raising his eyebrow.

“I don't know. It was inches from me, burning its green eyes into mine and the next thing I knew...you were touching me.”

He ran his hands through his hair with irritation. Pouting, I leaned my back against the bookcase with my arms pressed tightly against my chest.

Out of nowhere, a book tumbled to the ground from the top shelf of the towering bookcase. Liam and I looked at each other intrigued. Bending down, I grabbed the weighted, brown book embossed with a gold triangular shape on the cover. The triangle had a latch, enclosing two lustrous-gold wedding bands; both engraved with flaming infinity patterns. Eyes widened, and Liam and I, were hypnotized by the shimmering beauty the rings held.

“Interesting proposal, Liam Hendrik,” I teased, making him smile nervously. Flipping through the book, I became frustrated seeing the content was written in a language I didn't recognize.

This was Sasha's area of expertise; I thought, closing the book, dumbfounded.

“We’d better hold on to this.” I cleared my throat. “By the way...my mother knew Mrs. Rosenthal,” I said, pulling him to the wall of photos. I pointed to the necklace around her neck.

“Things just keep getting fucking weirder. So, your mother never mentioned Mrs. Rosenthal or that necklace to you?”

“She didn't mention a lot of things,” I huffed. “I wish Mrs. Rosenthal was here. So, she could tell us what the hell is going on,” I gritted my teeth, tightly gripping the book in my hand.

Before leaving, I went back out to the car, grabbed the camera, and took several pictures of the room, book, and the photo hanging on the wall of my mother and Mrs. Rosenthal. Walking out of her house was unsettling, and only left me with more questions.

Where did she go?

Did the shadow of evil have something to do with her disappearance?

The street was still in complete silence. Concerned more now than before, I peeked into the house next to hers. No sign of life anywhere. Not a single car, besides Liam's, was in sight.

“How does an entire neighborhood go missing?” I snapped.

“There's definitely something wrong with this situation; I'm calling reinforcements.”

***

Confusion lingered in the air. Detective Riley stood outside with me while Liam and the other police officials busted down doors on Canterbury Road only to find every single house unoccupied.

“Detective Riley, do we have a body count of the people who died in the bridge collapse?” I asked.

“About twenty casualties, why do you ask...oh my, God.” His face drained of color. “Majority of them lived on this street,” he blurted out, glancing around.

Inside I had prayed my gut instinct was wrong, but it never was. “How is that possible for people living on the same street to end up on the bridge at the same time? Where were they going?” My head felt like it was going to explode; the occurrences were getting more bizarre by the minute. On top of that, it was our sworn duty to protect people, and I felt we were failing miserably. “What about the six men that went missing, where do they live?”

He didn't answer me, but the look in his eyes explained it all.

“No way. So, everyone on this street is either dead or missing,” I yelled with undeniable frustration. My face fell into my hands. I just wanted to be relinquished from this nightmare.

Detective Somers approached us. “You guys need to take a look at this.”

Following his lead into a small home three houses down, we stepped into a little girl's bedroom decorated with pink princess stuff everywhere. Detective Somers then opened up the closet and pulled on the light cord. Horrified, I covered my mouth with my hand. The word “Sinthos,” was splattered all over the wall in blood.

Was this Sinthos character, what Mrs. Rosenthal was trying to warn me about?

Was, Sinthos, the shadow of evil I had encountered earlier?

I became dizzy from the questions swimming around in my brain. “Detective Riley, you said the majority of the people living on this street died in the bridge collapse. Is it possible, some made it over the bridge, or got into an accident beforehand?”

“We can get an accurate census of the bridge incident from officers Kennedy and Lewis for possible survivors.”

I couldn't help but notice the gleam of agitation in his eyes.

Are you hiding something from me?

“I can question the staff back at the hospital also,” I added, stepping away. He immediately pulled me by my arm and took me into the privacy of the hallway.

“Are you sure you don't need a couple of days off?” he ran his arm up to my shoulder, holding it there. “I don't need one of my best running herself into the ground. We won't hold it against you, I promise,” he spoke softly with a wink.

Why is everyone so insistent on me taking a break?!

“I'm fine, Detective Riley.” Before he could protest, I reported to him about the disappearance of our witness, Mrs. Rosenthal, the picture she had with my mother, her extensive collection of occult books, and the one that had mysteriously fallen into our possession. I omitted the encounter with the spirit. If Liam, my own partner/lover didn't believe me, I knew for sure he wouldn't either.