Chapter 3

New Year's Eve in Miami was a forty-eight hour party. An anonymous donor had paid for Lily to finish her degree and she knew it was his father trying to keep her busy and stop her from hounding the police to arrest Erik. Erik with a 'k' had gotten away with murdering her best friend because his father had diplomatic immunity that extended to his son at the university, but it didn't stop her social media tirades and warning to other girls he was chatting up. Lily tried not to think about it as she danced, then she saw him across the club floor, dancing with a girl who looked like Marlana. Lily watched in horror as he handed her a shot glass and laughed at she coughed afterward and accepted a glass of something else.

"Kitty! Jess!" She screeched over the music.

Not seeing her sisters, she shoved her way through the crowd to follow him and the drunk girl he was leading outside. She couldn't let him kill again. She grabbed an open champagne bottle from a bucket of ice and stalked him. Outside, Erik led the girl into a cabana where he let her fall onto a bed and then pulled the curtains. Looking back, she desperately sought her sisters in the crowd and waved frantically at them to come.

There was a large, white-blond guy leaning against the wall, smoking. He barely glanced from the overhead fireworks at her as she stumbled up on the cabana and peeked in. The girl was barely fighting back as Erik strangled her with the one-hundred and eight beads of Marlana's sandalwood mala while he assaulted her.

"Help! Help! He's killing her!" Lily screamed as loud as she could while she rushed in and clubbed him with the heavy, half-empty champagne bottle across the head. He didn't stop or even act like he felt it.

Swinging it like a baseball bat the second time, it collided with Erik's cheek and shattered. He rolled off the girl in shock, raising his hands in defense as he cursed in Danish at her.

Lily planted herself between the girl and him, holding out the broken bottle defensively, as she shrieked at him, "I won't let you kill someone else, Erik!"

The guy who was leaning against the wall, yanked her away by the arm and flung her into the pool, before he grabbed Erik and fled.

"Stop!" Lily shouted after them as she struggled to get out of the pool. She pointed at the two fleeing men. "Stop them, he's a rapist and murderer!" Kitty and one of the bouncers ran after them while another pulled her out of the pool.

"Call 9-1-1, she is barely breathing." Jess was leaning over the girl in the tent unwrapping the mala from around the victim's neck.

Ten minutes after, there were police everywhere and the almost-strangled woman was rushed away to the hospital, but it was almost two hours later before two detectives on scene finished interviewing them and switched places.

The detective kept looking between Lily and Jess as he questioned her, "And you said you recognized him, but you had never met him before tonight?"

"I told you and your partner who he is and what he did to Marlana Basnet. Call the Tampa Bay Police and ask for Detective Javier, he'll tell you," Lily ranted, "Why are you still here asking me stupid questions?"

"Miss Johansen, how can you be certain it is the same guy?" The detective demanded.

Lily pulled out her phone then looking at the dead device, she cursed before she snatched Jessica's phone from her hip. She pulled up Erik's InstaChat profile and held it out. "This is the same guy who was chatting up Marlana the week before she was killed and never again." Then she stormed over and snatched up the mala where it lay next to a yellow police number. "And these are Marlana's missing sandalwood Tibetan prayer beads. She wore these every day I knew her up to the day of her death! I am telling you the truth! Why won't you believe me?!" Lily started sobbing.

One of the other officers muttered something about drunk strippers and Jess glared at him, hissing, "I'm not drunk, I never get drunk, and my job has nothing to do with my sister or her roommate's murder, Mr. Never-tips-the-girls."

"Detective," another officer called, and he walked away.

"He's gonna get away. Ohgawd, he's gonna get away with it again," Lily chanted hysterically. "This can't be happening! It can't... It can't."

A woman in a CSI coverall came over. She smiled sympathetically. "Miss Johansen, I am going to need your friend's prayer beads back."

Lily clutched them to her chest. "What are you going to do with them? They're all I have left."

She held out a clear bag. "I promise, I will treat them with the utmost respect, and I will get them back to you as soon as the case is closed. I... I will need a sample of your DNA to exclude yours from the victims and the suspects."

Jessica eyed her, then pointed at the cameras. "You can't charge her with the assault or attempted murder, there is video evidence that she saved that woman."

"I believe she did," the CSI assured them, "But I would still like to ask for a voluntary sample. Are you her lawyer?"

Lily glanced at Jess who nodded once as Jess revealed, "I am a law student but I am not going to let my sister get blamed for what that bastard tried to do tonight."

After swabbing, Lily's cheek, the CSI said, "I don't think that will be a problem. Between us, I have another murder case with similar circumstances. We'll get him this time."

"Even if his father has diplomatic immunity," Kitty demanded as she walked up from giving her statement to a separate detective. "Because your bosses seem more inclined to lollygag around here than try to stop him from getting out of the country."

The CSI bowed her head for a moment then responded, "We can always hope catching him red-handed will mean the State Department will make an exception because this is number three." Then she walked away.

"What did she mean make an exception?" Kitty demanded.

"The State Department is in charge of all investigations into embassy personnel and their families associated with crimes on U.S. soil. It is up to the Feds to waive immunity and allow for prosecution," Jess revealed. "They probably won't let him be tried here because we have the death penalty. He'll be extradited and tried at home, but because his father is one of the twenty richest men in their country... I'm sorry, Lily, it doesn't matter that he is a serial killer. The fukker is going to get away with it."

"She's probably right." The detective had walked back over to them with someone in a gray suit.

"I am Agent Clark, FBI. You ladies are free to go unless you feel like you need protection."

"Why would we need protection?" Jess demanded.

"Because we believe the suspect fled on his father's yacht within ten minutes of the altercation. The Coast Guard can do nothing because it is already in international waters. The Netherlands Embassy has promised to return him for trial if he goes home but his father's company has contacts and holdings all over the world."

Lily sank to the ground, sobbing, "No... not again."

"Take your sister home. We at the FBI are very sorry for her loss and thank her for her heroism to stop him from murdering another woman," Agent Clark announced. "I suggest you go out the side unless you want your faces all over the news."

Cursing under her breath, Kitty helped Lily to stagger out the side entrance as Jess spoke to Agent Clark then she followed. Together the sisters drove back to Grandma Ann's home.

After Lily showered and went to bed, Kitty asked Jess, "What now?"

"What now?" Jess laughed in a disparaged way. "Nothing. The bastard's bodyguard took him straight to the boat and they sailed out at full speed. Agent Clark said it's a cruiser-style yacht designed to cross the Atlantic without stopping. In a week, he could be anywhere in the world. The only upside is Sis ruined his pretty boy face. There is a picture of him at the docks with several gashes and they found chunks of bloody glass in the car they used to get there."

"You don't think he'll come after her, do you?"

"Agent Clark didn't. He's a coward who likes his women drugged and helpless. He chloroformed Marlana and the other one. This one he dosed with rohypnol according to the hospital." Jess gulped a large glass of water, then declared, "This is a shyte way to start the new year, but still better than the year dad died. See you in the morning around noonish and we'll go for brunch?"

"Sure. Night, Sis." Kitty chuckled as Jess walked out, "Night, Sis."

<<@>>

Less than one year later...

Kitty sat in the visitor area of the Wellness Center, waiting for the staff to take her back to see her sister. Outside the window, there were tiger lilies in the garden area. She shook her head, it still shocked her that such delicate, tropical looking flowers grew in so many places. These were larger than the ones around her aunt's Inn, but whether in Wisconsin or Florida, the freckles on the brilliant orange lilies were the same. She regrated her job had her across the country and that she hadn't been there to rescue her baby sister this time.

While Kitty remembered the day she saved Lily from their mother, she wished she could save her from her depression and anxiety medication addiction as easily. The months of therapy provided by the school had only gotten her sister hooked on Xanax and never helped with the depression or trauma of finding her best friend's corpse being eaten by seagulls. It didn't help that the murderer was suspected of a dozen murders and still at large.

"Ms. Johansen?"

Kitty stood and followed her back to the Rehab Ward. Lily was sitting by a window staring out at a differed part of the garden and all the different bulb flowers.

"Hey you."

"Kitty?!" Lily surged to her feet and hugged her. "Jess said you were coming but I didn't realize it would be today."

"I used my vacation." Kitty looked at her pale sister carefully. "How are you doing?"

"I'm alive and Marlana isn't... but it isn't my fault." Lily repeated the thing her counselor made her say every day since she almost overdosed. "It's been a year, I'm fine."

"You're lying." Kitty's brow furrowed with concern.

"But I'm not dying," Lily grinned cheekily as a betraying tear crept down her cheek.

"You're a goof," Kitty whispered into her hair.

"Humor is a part of having a positive mental attitude," Lily insisted, "PMA is my new day-to-day."

Kitty bit her lip, struggling with not saying any of the things that came to mind. She had seen Lily do this particular mood dance before. Happy, overly optimistic Lily always crashed and burned into manic Lily or morose Lily. As Lily sat back down, Kitty noticed the sandalwood mala around her neck.

"Are those?" She couldn't finish the question.

Lily reached up and fingered them. "Yeah, since Erik committed suicide in Malasia, Marlana's case is closed. That CSI sent them back to me."

"Maybe you shouldn't keep them if they upset you," Kitty said calmly, but she wanted to rip them off her sister's neck. The police believed Erik had used them to kill two women, and in an attempt to kill a third, besides the others he dated that died suspiciously or disappeared.

"No, they are a message from Marlana. She wants me to heal and continue on. The priest here says sometimes spirits still talk to the living. She loved life, always saw beauty, and happiness, and she wants me to do the same. If I live my life honoring her outlook, I'll be honoring her memory," Lily responded enthusiastically.

"Really, Lilyana?"

Seeing her sister's worried expression Lily shook her head, "Trust me, Janika. I just... I just got sad when I first saw them; it won't happen again."

Kitty nodded, but she was terrified for her little sister that someday she would be third time lucky and no one would be there to save her.

After lunch, Kitty left and drove back to Miami. There was a For Sale sign in front of Grandma Ann's house. Jess couldn't afford the probate taxes and had to sell it. It broke Kitty's heart because she loved the house but inheritance taxes in Florida were very high, too high for a newly licensed truck driver and a college student to afford.

Jess was waiting as she packed boxes to be taken to Oconto for storage. "Well? Was I right?"

Kitty nodded, "She's doing the same thing she did after the car accident and Ava's death. She has convinced herself to be little Miss Sunshine. She thinks the beads are a message from Marlana to live her life like Marlana did."

"Ohgawd, I hope not. Marlana was nice but a flake. She took a half dozen different religions and smooshed them together into some weird Buddhist prayers-hippy free love-crystal hugging-rune reading mosh pit." Jess rubbed her forehead. "If Lily turns into Marlana 2.0, I am going to be the one who needs a therapist and bail money."

"I'm sorry you have to do this alone."

"I'm not. Jack is going to visit her in a few days and Leonard next week. Jeanie and Laura might even fly out from Las Vegas and Salt Lake City." Jess sagged into a chair and put her head in her hands, "I'm so sorry. I should have known she wasn't okay when I couldn't get her to transfer to a Miami school. I got a job at a club outside Tampa, I can dance and finish my degree there."

"I can't ask you to do that. I'll quit my job and..."

"And what, Kitty? Drive fresh fish or groceries or car parts for barely above minimum wage up and down the east coast? No, take the Alaska route job so you can move up to the trans-Canada one. I'll keep an eye on Lily," Jess refuted her. "I'll have enough to cover the tuition and board after I sell Grandma Ann's house. I'll just be working for groceries and pocket money."

"I'm sorry you have to sell." Kitty knelt and hugged her, whispering, "I am going to miss this house."

"Me too." Then they both wept for the woman who grandmothered them and the home they couldn't afford to keep.

<<@>>

Well, Lovelies,

What do you think of the beginning?