Sun in the South |• Southern Horror Series

24. Dirty Gloved Hands

Eighteen years ago, his dreams had been to graduate as the best in history class and go to college. It was highly likely that he'd ace his degree then, and finally get to be the Museum archivist he wanted to be. Unfortunately, he'd fallen in love with Monica. Not only did he not get to be a museum archivist, he didn't step into any college at all, and turned out to be a killer.

A despicable killer.

Tugging the gloves off his hands, Vasquez rested in the leather chair of his Mercedes. He was frantic, breathing hot air out, and assuring himself that it had been the only way.

The only way was to kill.

The smell of blood was naturally nauseating, but the imaginary smell of the blood of the person he had killed was even more sickening.

Vasquez's car zoomed off with immense speed until it met the Downtown traffic. Only when he saw the City Hall did his nerves drop to another stratum.

Killing Pepe wasn't the only problem — it also meant he'd killed a huge part of Yvonne's evidence to the case she was building up in favor of her client. She mattered to him, but so did his freedom.

Pepe was gone. Vasquez, taking Hydra and Lazaro's words into consideration, had gone into the municipal hospital to kill the life he'd claimed mattered to him.

Could the blood-spill ever end? The answer was no. Unless he got off the position he'd claimed a long time ago. The same position he had given up his college dream for. Which meant if he wasn't killing, he wasn't fixing archaic objects in a museum's show glasses either. He'd be losing on both ends.

His ringing phone snapped him out of his unending thought. It had taken him a second too long to reach for it in his pocket.

Was it the nurse? Had they found out what he had done?

They don't have your number, Vasquez, he remembered and quickly pushed the phone out. Seeing that it wasn't from the hospital should have made him chill the fuck out, instead, the tension in his nerves went from frying pan to fire.

Why was Yvonne calling him now?

"Hey?" She called in, her voice gentle and seductive. So no, she didn't know about Pepe yet.

"Where are you?"

"At work, where else?"

Vasquez breathed in the cool air freshener and almost forgot to breathe it back out. "Is something wrong?" Hence her calling him?

"No, no, not at all. I just wanted to call. It's midday and I hadn't heard from you." Yvonne giggled. "It's quite strange for a man who enjoys buzzing my phone up."

Swallowing, Vasquez tried to smile. He was too tense to, anyways. The picture of Pepe jerking and shivering from lack of oxygen was clogging his mind.

"What are your plans for me today?" Asked Yvonne in her usual Mexican drawl.

Sure, she was asking because at the end of their dinner earlier this morning, Vasquez had promised to fulfill her desires by taking her on multiple dates until she was tired of seeing everything seeable in Mexico. It would not be possible to meet and go out everyday because of how busy they were, but they could at least try to utilize their free time at nighttime. Even if it'd be for two hours.

"I'll wrap up completely before 9pm, I may not be able to come down to San Pedro to pick you up, but Roulette can."

"That's just fine. I should be done with work before then. So it works." She cleared her throat. "I also want to check on Clarissa." That was still at the mansion and hadn't contacted her mother since she left.