Free Blessed Are Those Who Weep by Kristi Belcamino

surely must haunt that tiny space.
    But I owe it to Maria to look for those letters. I owe it to her and her baby. She turned to me for help. Someone killed her before she told me her secrets, but maybe I can help her now.
    In front of apartment 210, I press my ear to the door. The only sound is my heart thumping loudly in my ear. I know I’m overreacting, but I get the overwhelming feeling that a tangible evil is emanating from the apartment. My mouth grows dry, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. I wipe my palms on my pants before I try the doorknob to make sure it’s still locked. I get out my lock pick kit. It takes a little less time than before. I stand back and gently kick the door open. The apartment is dark. A noise down the hall that sounds like a door opening sends me scurrying inside, pushing the door closed softly behind me. I reach off to the side for the light switch, but when I flick it, the room remains black.
    My heart races, and even in the dark, I see bloody faces in corners, my imagination running wild, mixing with my memories of the massacre. The apartment seems alive even though I know all the bodies are long gone. A lingering evil presence remains. With shaking fingers, I fumble in my small bag for my flashlight. I’m about to turn it on when a floorboard across the living room creaks and I hear a breathy sound—­like someone exhaling with scuba gear.
    I am not alone.

 
    Chapter 14
    I FRANTICALL Y CLAW for the doorknob behind me, but it’s too late. A weight slams into me in the dark, crushing me back against the wooden door. A gloved hand closes over my mouth, stifling my scream. My hand is on the doorknob behind me, and I have it twisted. If I can get our weight off the door, I can open it.
    Clawing for the eyes, my fingernails scrape against bare cheeks. I bite through the gloves and meet flesh at the same time my knee connects with the man’s groin. He grunts and yanks at my hair, tugging so tightly that tears spring to my eyes. As he yanks me away from the door, my hand is still grasping the twisted doorknob. The momentum of him pulling away as I hold the doorknob sends the door careening open. The scream building inside me lets loose at the same time light from the hall illuminates my assailant’s face. Bushy eyebrows and full lips. Eyes narrowed with hate. The same face I saw in the wedding photograph with Maria.
    Joey Martin.
    His eyes widen as my scream goes on and on. Within seconds, doors down the hallway are opening, and he has scrambled off me and is gone. Without thinking, I clamber to my feet and chase him, heading straight to the bathroom. I climb in the tub and peer out the window in time to see a stocky figure in black leap off the bottom of the telephone pole beside the building. Something drops from his waist, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he gives one glance up and darts around a small fence, right when the sound of sirens fills the air.
    Then I’m down in the alley, searching in the leaves.
    I find a small, metal, pointy thing.
    It’s like a metal stick with a sharp end like a stake. The gunmetal gray has ridges in it, like a piece of bamboo. The entire object is about the shape and size of a marker. I tuck it in my pocket as the police come charging around the corner with guns drawn.
    K HOURY SITS AC ROSS from me at her desk. She is not amused.
    I’m not under arrest, but she wanted me to come down to the station to tell my story.
    I already told her the whole story earlier, when she first showed up at the apartment. I told her how Mrs. Castillo thinks Joey Martin killed her daughter and that he is in town, not in Iraq. For a short time, she believed me enough to order an officer to pry up the floorboard in the closet. When the officer lifted the board, we all leaned down to see.
    There was nothing there.
    Now, back in her office, I can tell that Khoury won’t believe anything else I have to