Detained

11.

❝Expected Guests, Part Two❞
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Next day, May 2016
San Antonio, Texas

"What the fuck are you doing?!"

Jolting from the booming voice, Moira blinked back into reality as she moved her gaze from her cupped hands to look up at the Hispanic teen who towered over her. "I-I-I,'' she sputtered, annoying Marcos even more as the scowl on his face deepened. He smacked his teeth and took a hold of her wrist to lift her from the dining room chair she was sitting in.

"The police are at the fucking door, and if you didn't know, they're not like your stupid ass neighbor who stands around and waits for somebody to open up—they barge in." He shoved her towards the entrance of the house, and Moira almost tripped over her feet.

Marcos' words finally seemed to register and a familiar, hollow feeling developed in Moira's stomach. That was why she was mentally slipping away; she wanted to escape the dreaded confrontation with the police at her front door, and pretending like she wasn't here seemed to be the best option.

Santiano's predictions about what would happen today seemed to ring true. He was sure the police would be at the front door, prying about the missing Comcast technician and his neglected van, and here they were; ten in the morning and two squad cars deep.

After she showered last night and tried to get rid of any lingering traces of the Comcast technician, Santiano waited outside her bedroom door and brusquely instructed her to take the garbage bin out to the curb while it was still late. Moira didn't want anything to do with the trash can, especially knowing a dead body was inside of it, but Santiano had already proved his words were final, and she made sure not to verbally oppose him.

It took her almost thirty minutes before she got the trash can out on the curb stop, and for the entire time, she struggled to haul the container. Moira tried to talk herself into not giving up, but she would suddenly think about the heavy, mangled body crushed inside the trash can, and swear she could smell rotten, decomposing flesh seeping past the closed lid.

The walk back into the house was depressing and draining, and her night was sleepless as haunting images of the technician's dead face plagued her mind. Moira already had other calamities that were making her struggle to function as it was—the brothers and the bizarre death that happened right in her living room was just way too much to bear.

The other thing that worried not only Moira, but the fugitive brothers as well was the Comcast van. She heard the two of them brainstorming all night before Santiano finally came up with a solution. He thought that their best route would be getting the vehicle towed—if they called from a private number impersonating as an annoyed neighbor, it wouldn't track back to just Moira, they'll have to do an entire sweep of the block. Luckily, the towing company arrived with a truck after twenty minutes of the private call, and whisked the van away in just seven.

Now all Moira had to do was just keep the officers at bay and not lead them to suspect anything. So easy, she sourly thought, glancing over her shoulder to see Marcos no longer there.

She took in a deep breath before she slowly slogged towards the front door, and before she could wrap her fingers around the knob, the police banged on it from the opposite side, much louder and harder than Marva's knocking and it made the twenty-four-year-old flinch.

Opening the door to just a smidge of a crack, Moira peeped out of it to see two police officers standing on the front porch. Their gazes were steady and their expressions were firm as they both shifted into an assertive, upright stance when the door opened.