Page 72 of The Birthday Girl
Her tone dropped into a lilting, sing-song cadence. “He thought it was a game. Thought he could outsmart me. Poor Jimmy.” She leaned forward until the chain of her cuffs scraped across the table, the sound grating in the silence. “His biggest mistake was trailing after that worthless sister of his. He was always loyal. Always blind. And in the end?” She shook her head slowly, almost pityingly. “She cost him everything.”
“You’re sick.” Ramirez pushed off the wall, and Tahlia tilted her head, beaming.
“Finally. Someone understands.”
Vega gathered the picture and slid another across the table. The image showed what was left of Shanice and her two children after the fire had occurred. Their shapes were curled and blackened, and their bodies were reduced to fragile outlines amid the rubble.
Tahlia’s lips parted in something like delight. “Ah, the fire. Beautiful, wasn’t it? Flames are honest. They don’t pretend. They consume everything—the pretty, the ugly, and the innocent. Shanice thought she could fuck with me and walk away scot-free, but I gave her the hottest truth there is.” She giggled, breathlessly. “Even her babies couldn’t save her. The fire didn’t spare them either. Isn’t that purity, Detective? To burn together as a family?”
Stiff as a statue, Vega gathered the photo and slid it back into the folder, his focus shifting. This time, he didn’t reach for another picture. Instead, he pulled out a report stamped with the Coast Guard’s seal and placed it between them.
“No bodies this time,” he said evenly. “Just wreckage. The boat exploded twenty miles off the coast. They found pieces of the hull, some charred life vests, and nothing else.”
Tahlia’s smile sharpened, and she leaned forward, eyes glittering. “Of course, they didn’t find bodies. That’s the point of fire, Detective. It eats, devours, and leaves nothing but smoke and questions.”
Ramirez shifted against the wall, his arms crossing tighter. “So you’re saying you sank your own parents?”
Tahlia’s laugh rang high and brittle. “Sank? No. I freed them. I gave them the ocean for a coffin and the sky for a shroud. It was… poetic, really.” She tilted her head, a manic gleam in hereye. “Don’t you think it’s better than rotting in the ground like everyone else?”
Vega felt the familiar weight of exhaustion settling behind his eyes. He had interrogated killers before, but never one who spoke of murder like an art critic discussing a masterpiece.
Across the table, Tahlia’s fingers drummed the metal surface of the table in a rhythm that matched nothing but her fractured thoughts.
Vega sat in silence until the hum of the overhead light became a roar in his ears. He pushed the Coast Guard report back into the folder and folded his hands on top of the table.
“Last one,” he said, his tone even. “Tyriq Lawson. He vanished. We have no body, and there have been no reports of him turning up anywhere. Do you know where he is?”
Tahlia’s face lit like a stage lamp, her eyes wide and fever bright. “Tyriq.” She rolled his name on her tongue like candy. “He thought the world bent for him. Thought I bent for him.” Her giggle cracked the air. “But even gods can be humbled.”
Vega held her gaze. “So he’s dead?”
Her smile widened, obscene in its calm. “Dead? Alive? Buried? Breathing? You want me to spoil the ending?” She tilted her head, then whispered like she was about to tell him a secret. “Detective, the beauty of a disappearing act is the applause lasts forever.”
She threw her head back and laughed, loud and ragged, until the sound scraped the cinderblock walls. Then, just as suddenly, she slammed her cuffed wrists against the table so hard the chain rattled, and hissed through her teeth.
“Write everything down. Every name. Every flame. Every scream. This is my legacy.”
Ramirez flinched at the violence of her words, but Vega didn’t move. He simply gathered the folder, stacked it neatly, and slid it aside.
“Legacy?” he repeated, voice flat. “Or the death penalty? Only one of those carries your name past the grave.”
Tahlia grinned like a queen accepting her crown. “Either way, Detective… they’ll all be clapping for me when I take my place in hell.”
26- Happy Birthday
One year and six months later…
Tahlia woke beneath a ceiling that never went dark, her body trapped against a mattress so thin that it reminded her of her situation with every shift of her bones. It was her birthday. She was another year older, and another birthday spent alone.
Closing her eyes, she rolled onto her stomach, shoving her arms beneath the flat pillow that smelled of industrial detergent. Her fingertips brushed against something solid, and the touch sent a jolt through her body. She blinked, propped herself up on her elbows, and peeled back the pillowcase.
There, nestled in the thin cotton, lay a small parcel wrapped in what looked like torn notebook paper. Her lips curved upward.
She’d watched the guards for months now. Officer Diaz kept his son’s soccer schedule scribbled on the palm of his hand, and Mendoza couldn’t remember his own locker combination. Hell, they barely remembered their shifts, let alone a patient’s birthday, so she knew it wasn’t from them.
She pulled the parcel from its hiding place and stripped away the paper. Inside lay a metal file that winked in the dim light, a length of wire slim enough to probe a lock, a small key, and beneath them all, a neatly folded square of paper.
Happy Birthday, Tahlia, my love.
