Fables & Felonies

by Nellie K Neves

  Fables & Felonies

  Lindy Johnson Series Book 4

  Nellie K. Neves

  Fables & Felonies Copyright © 2019 by Nellie K. Neves. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Sariah Hathaway & Nellie K. Neves

  Photo Credit to: Paul Murphy

  Photography available on Unsplash.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Nellie K. Neves

  Visit my website at www.nellieknevesauthor.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: October 2019

  ISBN-97 816-9-17755-6-9

  For Chuck - With one question you forced me to pick up my sword and fight, and I’m forever grateful.

  Thank you.

  Noble and great, courageous and determined, faithful and fearless, that is who you are, and that is who you have always been.

  Sheri Dew

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 1

  It was impossible not to think about him.

  Every mile.

  Every moment.

  The memory of him in his hospital bed was impossible to shake. I replayed that moment in the main house over and over.

  I changed it.

  I saw Raife early and took the knife instead. It was me left bleeding to death in his arms. That was easier than whatever this place was.

  But it didn’t free him from the nightmares, and that was all I wanted. I wanted him to be free of the same chains that had held me for so long.

  So I kept driving.

  I slept on and off at rest stops along I-5. I gave myself enough time to rest, and then I drove on.

  My stomach rebelled against the fast food I fed it during the wee hours of the night. I’d become too accustomed to the fresh fruit and vegetables I’d eaten at the compound. Yet another reason I frequented every rest stop I passed. But as I watched the sun rise over the Sierra Nevada mountain range somewhere outside Chowchilla, I remembered how much I’d once loved Central California. It wasn’t my home anymore, but the endless fields and orchards whispered peace to my soul.

  My parents hadn’t moved far, maybe twenty minutes closer to the mountains. With no town limit sign in sight, I had no idea where I was, but it took forever to get there. Granted, I’d been driving for well over eighteen hours, stops included, and was perhaps a bit irritable.

  The broad porch spread in front of me as I pulled down the driveway. I’d take it all in another day. I wasn’t in the mood to gush and be hospitable. I parked my car in the gravel driveway. My mother stood from the porch swing and set a mug on the table beside her. My door slamming echoed between the garage and the house. Her mug steamed like coffee, but I knew it was tea, something to calm her nerves while her wayward daughter set out on another reckless adventure.

  “Lindy.” It was more than my name. It was relief and happiness, and some sort of triumph or victory that I’d come.

  I let her hug me, but in the next breath I asked, “Where’s Dad? I need to go see Amos.”

  “He’s inside, honey, but you need to rest.” She looked me over and added, “And eat.”

  “No.” My statement left no room for anything else.

  My dad pushed the swinging screen door open and slugged my arm like he always had. I stumbled back a couple steps and rubbed my shoulder. He started to apologize, but the look on my face told him he better not.

  “Good drive?”

  “Wild,” I said, sober as ever. “Can we go see Amos?”

  “Your mom made muffins.”

  Without a word, I walked toward the garage. He whispered goodbye to Mom and trailed after me.

  As we drove to the police station he tried to make small talk, but my mind was stuck in Seattle. He mentioned the football season, though I had been a little too busy to keep up on sports. Eventually, he gave up and filled me in on what he knew about the case.

  “The girl’s name was Honey B.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Are you teasing me?”

  “Not her given name. She’s a singer; well, she was a singer. Amos, he’s going by Mack right now, met her in a karaoke club and promised to make all her dreams come true. The neighbor found her in her apartment strangled with her microphone wire.”

  “Why suspect Amos?”

  “No alibi. His prints matched the ones on the doorknob, but that could be easily explained away because he was her manager. The neighbors heard them arguing earlier that day, and with his accent, it’s easy to place him.”

  “Any prints or transfer on the microphone wire?”

  “No, it was wiped clean.”

  “It’s not enough. They can’t hold him on doorknobs.”

  “I agree, but Donnelley has a foot in the door with the judge. They’re detaining Amos right now. He’s the number one suspect. If they find out his real identity, if they find one more scrap of evidence, Lindy, it will be the proverbial nail in the coffin.”

  My ex-boyfriend, Amos, took cautious to a whole new level. He’d worked people over his whole life. Con man since day one if you hear him tell it. His prints weren’t in the system because, once the shoe dropped, he’d never left anything behind. No more than a ghost who’d traveled the West coast, hardly even a myth.

  “Has he been charged with the murder yet?”

  “No, but once they do, bail will be set well above a half million. I don’t think he’s got that lying around.”

  “He’s probably good for it,” I said with a little too much confidence.

  He caught my eye across the cab. “You need to work fast.”

  My heart wasn’t in it. My heart was with Ryder in that dimly lit hospital bed a thousand miles away. But Amos needed me, and the knowledge gave me a foothold in his case.

  I followed my dad into the precinct. The clipboard slid across the counter, pen rattling over the top from a chain. I signed a pseudonym, but paused before I continued.

  “What is it?” Dad’s terse whisper brought a few heads around.

  “The date,” I said. “I don’t even know what month it is.”

  Dates didn’t matter in the Eden’s Haven compound.

  “November 16.” His voice betrayed his worry.

  I claimed to be Mack’s sister. Dad played it off as though they might get more information out of their suspect if he saw a friendly face. Thankfully they bought the story. I followed an officer down the hall. My dad risked enough being seen with someone from the other side of the aisle. Dad wasn’t like me. He didn’t lie. The thought made my pulse quicken. If my law-loving lawyer father had taken to falsehoods, the situation was worse than I thought.

  Waning fluorescent lights lit the hallway, turning my skin a sickly shade. I didn’
t want to be there. I wanted to be with Ryder. Instead of holding his hand, I tangled my fingers together in a nervous disaster of anxiety.

  “Wait here,” the guard said. The steel door echoed behind him.

  Nothing was exactly white in the room, just a shade or two off, as if the walls were dirty, and trimmed in blue paint. Cameras recorded my movement. I sat in the chair and set my hands in front of me to show I was willing to play nice.

  The door echoed again and like a dream, there he was. Six foot two and as dashing as he’d ever been—even in his wrinkled suit.

  “My word.” America still hadn’t stolen his British accent. “There’s a little sparrow come to visit. Officer, did you let this bird in?”

  Deadpan, the officer said, “Five minutes.”

  The cuffs jangled as he snapped them into place. The guard exited the room, leaving us alone.

  “No humor at all in this place. Awful hard for a bloke like me to get along. Tell me, has sarcasm died along with common courtesy? How have you been, love?”

  My mouth dropped open. Never a concern with the future, die or not die, it was all the same to Amos. Though typical behavior for him, it always came as a shock for me.

  “Amos, you’re about to be charged with murder, and you’re asking me how I’m doing?”

  “Well, clearly my condition isn’t ideal. By the looks of you, you’ve either got a shiny new eating disorder, or you’re some kind of new age supermodel.” He framed his face with open palms. “Like zombie glam, or something.”

  “Please focus. I’m trying to help you.”

  “Help me? Why would you help me?” Considering our history, his question had merit. “I nearly ruined your whole life. You owe me nothing.”

  He had a point. “Because I’m a fool, I guess.”

  A sneaky grin crept up his cheek. “Unless you still have feelings for an old flame, eh? Fancy another go at it, love?”

  “No, I don’t.” I pressed my lips together and gathered my composure. “But I don’t think you’re guilty of murder, and I don’t want you going down for it.”

  Amos sobered quickly. His hazel eyes fixed on the table. “Then I stand a chance with your help, Sparrow.”

  The nickname tightened my throat with emotion. Too many memories, no time for any of it.

  “They don’t have enough to hold you. It won’t take much to get you out,” I told him.

  “Who do they think you are?"

  “I’m your sister, of course.”

  “Of course.” And in the next instant I knew he’d convinced himself that it was true. One of the first tricks he’d ever taught me, you have to believe the lie before you convince anyone else.

  “I’ll need to hire a lawyer for you. Where’s your money hidden?”

  He scoffed. “I’m broke. I never hang on to anything that long, you know that.”

  “I know you say that, but I also know you used to have a locker on pier forty-nine with eighty thousand dollars stuffed inside. Where’s the newest nest egg?”

  His nose twitched once, my only indication that I’d breached his defenses. My familiarity with his practices left him unhinged.

  “Bus station downtown, locker combination is,” he drew in a deep breath and blew it out all at once, “your birthday. Locker is the same as the day I walked out on you. There’s more than enough inside.”

  From any other guy it might have felt as though he still held a candle for me. Coming from Amos, it meant nothing. He used familiar dates to remember nonessential patterns and sequences. Standard practice in the life of a con man.

  “I’ll have you out by the end of the day,” I said before I left.

  ♦♦♦

  I dropped Dad at work and drove his car to the bus depot. The locker was 1513, and it opened with a simple twist of four right, sixteen left, and eight right.

  April 16, 1987.

  A built-in safety clause; if someone guessed my birthday, they’d have to pick between seven or eight. But long ago, Amos told me he didn’t trust seven, the luck is all used up.

  I jarred the duffel bag from the locker, and hefted it into my arms. I knew better than to count the contents, even once I was safe in the car. Enemies of Amos were always watching. It wasn’t worth the risk to stay put.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  With the small fortune I’d found in the bag, securing a lawyer came together with ease, not to mention getting his release. I felt some guilt paying for everything with money he’d conned from the people Amos called “muppets.” But it served its purpose. Dean Chen, criminal defense lawyer, worked quickly and within the hour he exited the building with Amos two beats behind him.

  Mr. Chen gave him a few words of advice I couldn’t hear, nodded my way and said, “We’ll be in touch,” before he strode for his car up the street.

  All that remained was Amos and I standing in front of the precinct, me in my clothes from yesterday, and Amos in his wrinkled three-piece suit, red tie looped around his neck. His eyebrow twitched twice.

  “Come now, Little Sparrow, any second thoughts yet? You always liked it when I wore a suit.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d doubted my choice to come, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last.

  “Come on, moron. Let’s go.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  My escapade ate up the majority of the day. Dad waited by the curb as I stopped by to pick him up after work. He slipped into the front seat and pulled the door shut.

  “How’d your first day go?” I pulled away from the curb and he fastened his seatbelt. “Any luck?”

  Using my thumb, I pointed into the back seat. Amos waved at my father as if he were a welcome guest.

  “Hey, Dad. Can I call you dad?”

  My dad’s face glowed crimson. “Lindy, are you clinically insane? You can’t bring him home like a stray animal! If anyone finds out I’m sharing a house with the man we’re prosecuting, I’m sunk.”

  I’d already run through the argument in my head, a trick, ironically, I’d learned from my father.

  “But he’s not staying with you. He’s staying with me. You promised me a separate space, right? The house out back?”

  “Come again?” Amos leaned between the seats to get a better view.

  My father tried to object, but words fell over the top of each other, collided and babbled with incoherent agitation. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen the phenomenon. It’d also happened the year the Yankees lost the World Series, the time Eleanor brought home a snaggle-toothed biker as her prom date, and the time I tried to launch his 1964 Chevy Chevelle over a handmade jump and plowed through the whole mess instead.

  “It’s fine, Dad. They won’t know.”

  Dad slipped into some semi-catatonic state the entire way home, only making slight twitching movements and muttering under his breath about how I never listen anyway.

  “He’s going to be all right, then?” Amos asked after a while. “Should we drop him by the funny farm?”

  I smiled, but it didn’t last long. “He’ll be fine. We just need to get him home.”

  “What about you, Sparrow? You don’t look so good either.”

  “Long story. Not worth going into.” I glanced in the rearview mirror and considered asking him to call me Lindy for my own sanity. “What’s that you always said about the past?”

  He caught my eye and beamed with the pride of a professor. “It’s behind you, so why go back now?”

  “Exactly.”

  But I didn’t believe it. In my mind I was still pressed against the hospital glass, watching Ryder, wishing he would look my way once more.

  Chapter 2

  The arguments started the second Amos set his foot to the front porch. Mom insisted that she feed me, and I wasn’t willing to leave Amos out in the cold on his own, which was a laugh because even in November the valley wasn’t that cold. That started Dad in with his speech about criminals in a prosecutor’s home, which launched my mother in on one of her speeches about tolerance and lov
e.

  I happened to glance back at Amos. He took in the entire exchange with the morbid curiosity of an old lady watching soaps. If he could have sold popcorn, he would have. Granted, he probably would have claimed the popcorn was covered in some sort of chemical that reduced your waistline and increased the bust line, all in the name of charging more.

  “She’s been driving all night, gone all day. She’s about to drop, Richard. I can’t believe you would forbid our daughter entry after you were the one who called her in the first place.” Mom’s veins popped out on her forehead when she became agitated. My record was four, counting the one in the neck, but even with just the two I knew she wasn’t willing to back down yet.

  “I’m not forbidding her anything, Pam. I’m merely suggesting the criminal—”

  “Alleged,” I corrected.

  Dad pointed to me and said, “Thank you.” Always a sucker for the law. “The alleged criminal should keep his distance. A hotel, a storage unit near the train tracks, or a roomy box under an overpass, perhaps?”

  He noticed Amos’ dopey grin for the first time.

  “And what, pray tell, are you grinning at?”

  Amos’ eyebrows shot up as though he’d never expected anyone to notice him.

  “Oh yeah, sorry. I never had a proper family, so I’m watching this whole exchange and I’m wondering if everyone’s family is like this, and if so, how does anyone ever get inside a blasted house? It’s all debate, point, and counterpoint. I’ve seen laws passed faster in parliament.”

  My mother got stuck on the ‘no family’ bit.

  “Oh, Richard, he’s an orphan. It’s not like he knows any better.”

  “You still can’t kill people, Pamela, not even if you’re an orphan.” It was always trouble when Dad started using Mom’s full name.

  Amos nudged Dad with an elbow. “Yeah, come on, Dick, let a bloke in the house, huh?”

  There had always been something magical about Amos’ smile, never crooked, only unbalanced by a single dimple on the right. I’d watched him take money from the shrewdest tightwads on that smile alone. Heck, for a while he’d had me on that smile alone.