Taking a deep breath, she gave in. “Man?”
“Yes,” Ophelia said. Harlow didn’t buy her surprise for a minute. Ophelia put down the glass and picked up her hand, faking sincere concern. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you’d heard. I got the call last week… He died.”
“Ophe,” she said, extracting her hand. “I don’t have a damn clue what you’re talking about. I don’t—”
“The officer guarding the evidence locker,” Ophelia said. “The one who was attacked when your evidence was taken… You do know it was Ryske who arranged that, don’t you?”
At the time, a fleeting thought on whether Ryske or her crew could be involved in the chain of events that led to her liberation hadn’t stuck. One drama had led to another; she hadn’t dwelled on her brief suspicion.
Looking at Ophelia almost drew her in. “That he arranged for the locker to be ransacked.”
“For your evidence to go missing, yes,” Ophelia said, nodding and picking up her champagne again. “The man who was in charge of the evidence fought. He was subdued and had been in a coma… Well, he was until he died.”
An innocent man had died so she could be free. Harlow couldn’t believe it. Even though she hadn’t been the one to pull the proverbial trigger, if it hadn’t been for her predicament, Ryske would never have sent anyone in.
“I…”
“They made it look like a juvenile prank, of course,” Ophelia said. “They were very clever… Six people have had their charges dropped. I suppose those people have a lot to thank you for.”
“Six?” she asked. Her nausea returned and it crept deeper into her bones. “Murderers?”
“Alleged,” Ophelia said with a shrug. “At least three of them. Yes… One murdered his wife and children… Though, he didn’t really, did he? He won’t be convicted.”
Slowly, Harlow’s eyes closed. This was what Ophelia wanted. She wanted Harlow to be sickened by what had been done in her name. As much as Harlow didn’t want to give her the satisfaction, it was impossible not to have a reaction to finding out that although justice had been done for her, it wouldn’t be done for the victims of others.
“I really thought you knew,” Ophelia said.
Anger burst through Harlow. “You knew I didn’t know.”
“My advice? If you spent less time screwing and more time listening to anything he has to say, you might be more aware of his capabilities…” Her once warm, friendly eyes cooled. “How can you claim to love a man you don’t even know? You make him what you want him to be in your head. You don’t accept what he truly is.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about my relationship with Ryske,” Harlow said, backing away. “And you should know better than to screw with me.”
Not intimidated, Ophelia matched her retreat by advancing. “Do you think I fear you, Harlow? How many times must I extend the olive branch? I try with you. I try and I try. Why can’t you see we’d be great allies?”
The woman stalking toward her had a purpose and it was nothing to do with keeping the peace.
“You think you can fuck with me?”
“Do you think because you got the better of me once that I’m afraid of you?” Ophelia said. “Why don’t you go to wherever you’ve got that weapon hidden and remind yourself what I’m capable of?”
Harlow stopped. “Is this where we are, Ophelia? Caught in a race to see who can murder the other first?”
Shrugging, Ophelia checked her manicure. “I just want you to think long and hard about whether you want me to be your ally or your enemy. I can be either. I’m willing. But, if you choose the latter, don’t fool yourself. You’ll lose.”
Proud as she was of herself, Ophelia seemed to forget that there was one thing she would never be able to change; one thing she’d never win.
“You could slaughter me right here,” Harlow said. “He’ll never come to your bed.”
Her hand fell to her side, yet there was a glimmer of a smile on Ophelia’s face. “Oh, don’t worry about that… He swore never to return to Anwen’s bed and he spent six months of his life at her sexual beck and call… You may think that I regret not having what you and she have, but I don’t. Because I know you’re temporary and she was a fool. I will outlast both of you.”
“That’s it, isn’t it? It’s all about him. You’ve got yourself stuck in this mire. You warn against it, pretend to give a crap, but who’s the one who doesn’t listen to him now? Ryske knows how a vendetta can ruin a person… I’m not sure you even know what you want from him. Is it sex? Love? Or do you just want to take down women like me who have broken through to him. You couldn’t do it. You were inept and you just can’t handle that.”
Ophelia lunged at her. Harlow leaped out of her way, smirking at her attempt before spinning around and exiting through the door they’d entered. Running down the stairs, Harlow didn’t want Ophelia to come after her or to come across Brash.
Neither happened and she got to the alley where Noon’s car was waiting. Anwen was in the back already. Harlow didn’t get in. Instead, she stuck her head in Ryske’s window again.
“Go home,” she said. “I’ll catch the next one.”
Before she could stand up, Ryske grabbed the loop on her necklace. “What the fuck, Trink? What the hell did she want you alone for?”
Anwen must have told them about Ophelia’s request. Ryske wouldn’t have liked that she’d been in there by herself, but she was pleased he’d trusted her enough not to storm the place.
“Doesn’t matter,” Harlow said, grabbing his chin to pull him around for a kiss. “I’ve got something I need to do.”
“We’ll give you a ride,” Ryske said, nodding backward. “Get in.”
She shook her head. “I can walk. I want to walk.”
“Babe—”
“Don’t sound so worried,” she said and smiled. “Anwen told you about dinner Thursday?”
“Yeah,” Ryske said. “Wait a fucking second, that’s Thursday. This is only Tuesday. You’re talking about not—”
“Don’t wait up,” she said and kissed him again.
Drawing his hand away from her necklace, she made short work of leaving the alley, choosing to go out the back way where a car couldn’t follow. She didn’t want them creeping after her trying to figure out where she was going.
Harlow didn’t plan on going straight to her destination. She wanted to walk a while and knew there was a park close by. Wrapping her head around what Ophelia had said would take some time. To get some perspective, there was one ideal location. After her walk, she’d need to vent.
22
“What did Ryske do now?” Clyde asked on a sigh when he opened his apartment door.
Her friend stepped aside and gestured for her to come inside.
“I do not only come to see you when Ryske does something to…” Harlow stopped walking and looked over her shoulder at him as he closed the door. “That’s exactly what I do, isn’t it?”
Laughing, he slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, it is,” he said. “But, it’s okay. I’m just happy to see you. So, spill it.”
Clyde guided her to the couch and sat her down.
“I don’t know that he did anything…” she started. “I mean, I guess I do, but… I haven’t asked him because…”
“Because…”
Slipping her finger from her pointed ring, she set it on the table and slid her shoes off to curl her legs under herself. Made sense to get comfortable before making an uncomfortable confession.
Propping an elbow on the back of her couch, she let the truth out. “I think I killed someone.”
Losing his ease, Clyde twisted to face her. Searching her with concern, he seemed to be trying to judge her veracity. “Well, if that’s true, I think Ryske is a better guy to talk to than me.”
“I would but… I think he killed him too.”
That just confused her poor friend. “I don’t get it. You both killed a guy, but you’re not sure that he kille
d him? Were you blindfolded?”
“No,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “You got booze?”
Breathing out, he presented a hand to the kitchen. “You know where it is.”
Harlow headed into the kitchen and opened the cabinet to retrieve the alcohol and glasses. “Remember I was in jail?”
“Uh, yeah, it hasn’t slipped my mind.”
“And then, remember I was out of jail?” she asked, bringing everything back into the living room.
“After house arrest, yeah. I came to visit you at your parents.”
She sat on the floor between the couch and coffee table. “They dropped the charges because evidence was lost.”
“Yeah, I heard about that at work,” Clyde said. “A bunch of people got away with murder…” He trailed off, putting the pieces together much faster than she had. In her defense, he had more information in quicker succession. Harlow turned around to offer him the liquor she’d poured. “Oh.”
Picking up her own glass by the rim, she slumped against the couch, curling an arm on the seat to toss back her measure. “Yeah.”
“But you weren’t guilty, right? So, it’s a good thing for you. You can’t look a gift horse in the mouth. It wasn’t your fault that…” The way she looked at him over the rim of her glass made his words fade again. “You think it is your fault?”
Maybe he hadn’t been so quick to figure it out. “I think I know some people who believed in my innocence. People who were tired of seeing me locked up…”
“People like… men you might have slept with recently?”
“Maybe,” she said, being vague was more for his benefit than hers.
Harlow trusted him, but if the shit hit the fan, Clyde could find himself in his own interrogation room. Keeping details vague gave him plausible deniability. If she didn’t name names, he could swear she hadn’t named names.
“Shit, Har, that’s… a lot.”
“I know,” she said, topping off her glass. “I know that nobody meant for anyone to be hurt… or killed. When you’re not in the room, you can’t control what’s going on, can you?”
“And he wasn’t in the room?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “That would’ve been stupid. We never talked about. I never asked for details. I did have a thought that maybe someone I knew might have had a hand in it, but I was so grateful to be free that I let it go.” Sipping her drink, she ran a hand through her hair. “Like I always let things go… God, Clyde, when did I get like this? When did I let myself have selective memory? I knew it. I mean, I did. I had to, right? I had to know it was him. It was too convenient. He’s antsy about me being inside for months. We find out there’s no end in sight because the trial will be months away. I’m telling him that I’m going away for it anyway… He was annoyed.” Slurping her liquid, she slammed the glass onto the coffee table and then pounced around onto her knees, laying both arms on the seat of the couch. “My boyfriend doesn’t do well with sitting on his hands. He takes action when something isn’t going the way he wants it to.”
Just like he didn’t pout, or sulk, Ryske kept marching on regardless. If there was a problem, he addressed it. If something needed to be done, he did it. She was locked in a cage and he was resolved to do everything in his power to free her from it.
Harlow should’ve known from the exact second she looked up into that window and witnessed how Maze and Noon were holding him back that Ryske wasn’t going to just accept her fate as lost.
Clyde was figuring it out. “You think he wanted you out and arranged for someone to make that happen.” She shrugged; he frowned. “But, killing a guy I…”
She licked her lips and laid her head down on her crooked arms. “There was an officer guarding the evidence locker.”
Clyde’s mouth opened in understanding. “Oh, I heard about that… yeah… Oh…”
At work, no doubt. Everything was at work. Those at children and family services were clued in because they worked with a lot of cops and officials.
“I don’t know what happened. If it was an accident, maybe the guy was already weak, or maybe they beat the bejeezus out of him, I don’t know… It’s bad enough that he died. I mean, it’s truly awful. But then, I hear six other people got their charges dropped. Six, Clyde. What if they were guilty?”
“What if they weren’t?
“We’ll never know, will we? There will never be a trial. We’ll never know. They could go out and hurt other people and whose fault would that be?”
“That’s a lot to have on your conscience…” Peering at her, he leaned down. “Give yourself a break. You had no idea he was capable of something like this.”
She pointed a finger. “I didn’t say that, I… I don’t think that there’s anything he’s incapable of. I just never sat down and considered specifics, you know? And now it’s real. Someone has actually died. It’s all cause and effect.”
Clyde wasn’t done trying to ease her conscience. “Surely it’s not his fault then. It’s the fault of the person who did kill Jarvis Hagan.”
She scoffed. “You think? If the guilty party had been in jail, he-who-shall-not-be-named wouldn’t have done anything, would he?”
Shifting around, Clyde slouched. “Guess not…” They both sat considering the situation for a minute. “Whatever happened, it’s not on you. You didn’t ask anyone to get you out or ask anyone to act on your behalf, did you? You’re not like some mob boss who can pull the strings from the inside.”
“No, but…” Sitting slowly, she faced the truth that she’d kept coming back to in her hours wandering around the park. “That makes it worse.”
Tilting his head, he frowned again. “How so?”
“Because he loves me that much, Clyde. I bring out the worst in him. Do you know what that’s like? To know that the person you love did the worst thing they’ve ever done because they thought it was what you wanted? He did it because he loved me so much; he couldn’t be without me. I told him to give up and move on, and that was the catalyst. That pushed him to make the decision that he couldn’t leave me in there anymore… If it wasn’t for our love, people wouldn’t have died… Our love killed people.”
The grim understanding on his face said it all. “Shit, that’s heavy, Har.”
Inhaling as she twisted around to put her shoulder blades against the front of the couch cushion, she sighed as she relaxed. “I don’t know what to do about any of this… I can’t say it’s okay. I can’t say I agree with it. Even if I tried, he’d know I was bullshitting because if he’d believed I would condone this, he would’ve told me before it went down.”
“He couldn’t have told you, you were in jail. Someone would’ve heard him.”
“He’d have told me,” she said, stretching her legs out under the coffee table. “He wouldn’t have been explicit or he’d have done it at visitation… He can tell me things without saying them out loud.”
“So, even though he knew you wouldn’t approve. He did it anyway?”
“Yeah.” In spite of everything, she couldn’t let Ryske be painted as a villain. “I know why he did it. I love him for loving me that much, but… it’s a lot, you know?”
“Yeah.”
More silence followed. When he didn’t say anything else, she smiled over her shoulder. “You’re supposed to be giving me advice.”
Seeing her friend at such a loss made her feel bad. Given that she felt the same way, she couldn’t begrudge him his astonishment.
“Babe, I… I wish I could, but… The guy is already dead. You didn’t kill him and neither did, you know, anyone you might have slept with… As for the people who are out… I don’t know. Short of tracking them all down and checking them out for yourself, I don’t see what you can do… You might not even find evidence that you can corroborate either way. Even if you do, there’s no chain of custody. You can’t con them all into confessions.”
“No,” she said. “I can’t.”
“But, then there’
s the…”
“The what?”
He put his glass on the table. “You can’t tolerate this kind of thing, Harlow. You have to… Shit, he’d put me through a wall for saying this, but… You can’t have this kind of thing done in your name. What if it happens again? You can’t do anything about what’s done. But you can let him know that this kind of behavior isn’t acceptable.”
Harlow shook her head. “You don’t understand the life we live.”
It sounded like she was making excuses and that just made her sick. She’d had the same thought. Harlow knew that her love was capable of anything. She even believed him capable of murder if the moment called for it.
But, he’d stopped her from killing Hagan once and knew the danger of crusades. Her love might be capable, but he was smart too. Frivolous killing didn’t make sense to him; he knew what it could cost him. That was the reason he’d given for not killing Ophelia. Good as it might feel to watch the life seep out of her, they’d have to pay the price, and it wasn’t worth any of them giving up their freedom.
Ryske wouldn’t have ordered whoever went into the evidence locker to kill the guard. Yet, he must have forgiven the act. She couldn’t believe that he hadn’t heard through his contacts that the man had died. If the victim had been in a coma, then he’d been in hospital. Whoever had put him there must have been paying attention, at least through back channels.
“Maybe I don’t understand your lifestyle or the choices that you make,” Clyde said. “But, I still remember the Harlow Sweeting who started in my department. You worked hard, kept your head down. You had a mission. Even though you didn’t share it with anyone else, it was clear you wouldn’t be moved if you didn’t want to move. You were tenacious.”
“I’ve changed,” she said, picking up his glass to sip the liquor.
“Changed? Yes. But, you’re still as headstrong. You still have the determination that always burned from you.” Slipping his fingers onto her jaw, he guided her eyes to his. “You’ve always been so in control, Harlow… You’re no pushover and you don’t need anyone to save you.”
Go All In (A Go Novel Book 4) Page 18