Joe rolls his eyes and pushes himself to a standing position, muttering his disgust over uppity lawyers. Tori raps the edge of the folder sharply on the table and says in an ominous tone, “We’ll be back, Cass. Don’t think you’re going anywhere.”
As soon as they close the door behind them, Felicity sits down beside me and puts a petite hand over mine. “It’s nice to meet you, Cass. Sebastian and Talia sent me to lift your spirits while kicking ass. Do you want me to represent you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
She smiles and sets her briefcase down. “You’re apparently very popular tonight. There’s another lawyer outside, claiming he was sent to represent you.”
I frown. “By whom?”
Felicity shrugs. “I have no idea. I’ve already talked to Sebastian and he’s brought me up to speed on your investigation. He hopes to have all the evidence necessary to build a strong case against Phillip. This evidence might all be circumstantial, but it’ll certainly be more compelling and easier to draw an inference of guilt than what they have on you. Right now I need to go talk to the Chief, but I wanted your permission to ask for this deal.”
“What deal?” I ask, eyeing her warily.
She squeezes my hand. For a woman under five feet she has a surprisingly strong grip. “They aren’t going to charge you, dear. I won’t let that happen, but we need time to get the paternity tests run against the DNA samples. Would you be willing to stay here overnight? We should have the results in the morning.”
My heart starts racing with worry. “You just said that they won’t charge me.”
“That’s why this conversation is only going to happen between me and the Chief. He’ll know what we’re doing, but because we don’t know who else in this department Phillip Hemming might have on his payroll, it’s going to have to look like you’re being held, pending charges. That way Phillip won’t be tipped off.”
Pulling out a pad and pen, she hands it to me. “For now, I need you to write down everything that happened from the moment Celeste approached you.”
“There’s one thing none of us knew while collecting this evidence.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “What’s that?”
My hands tremble so hard I have to set the notepad and pen down. “One of the detectives just told me that the lab report on that abandoned car states that the person couldn’t have survived that much blood loss.” I look down at the blank pad, my voice shaking. “We know for certain that the blood is Celeste’s. I can’t believe she’s gone.”
She presses her lips together, then takes a deep breath. “Murder certainly ups the stakes, but it doesn’t change the plan. We just need to provide them with compelling evidence, which is coming.”
“But all of this hinges on us proving that Phillip is the baby’s father.” I put my hand on my chest and take several breaths, trying not to hyperventilate. “If I’m wrong and the tests prove he’s not…I’m screwed.”
She takes the pen and puts it in my hand. “We will know for sure tomorrow. This is just for me for now, but I think it will also help calm you down. Start writing.”
I body slam Erik to the mat, shoving my shoulder into his chest. He tries to wrap his arm around my neck, but I’m relentless and don’t let him get a good lock. Grabbing his arm, I roll over his body and fully extend his arm into a brutal arm bar hold.
In the distance, I hear voices followed by pain exploding in my shoulder.
My vision comes into focus. Gil is bent over me. He jabs his cane into the same spot and raises his voice. “Let him go, Calder!”
I immediately release Erik, who quickly rolls away holding his shoulder. “Sorry,” I mumble while rubbing sweat off my brow.
“Take it down a few notches, dude,” Erik gripes before walking off.
I start to sit up, but Gil jams his cane right in the center of my chest, shoving me back to the mat. “Get your head on straight, Cald! You have a fight in three days and getting disqualified isn’t how you win fights.” Lifting his cane back to the floor, he leans on it, his lined face scrunched in lecture mode. “I know you didn’t expect the bout to be rescheduled so quickly, but if you can’t get back to the level of focus it’ll take to beat Hammer, I will find a way to get you pulled, and the EUC will continue their shitty ways for another year.”
“He’ll get there,” a deep voice says from behind Gil.
I jump to my feet, fists clenched. “You’d better be here to tell me Cass is at home.”
Bash slides his hand into his slacks pockets and looks at Gil. “Can we have a minute?”
Gil’s gaze pings from Bash to me and back. “I’ve got some paperwork that needs doin’ anyway.” As he ambles off, he waves to Erik. “The others won’t be here until eight. Come do some filing for me, Erik. Nothing will make you want to finish that college degree more.”
Once Erik follows Gil into his office, I face my cousin, still fuming that Cass had to spend the night in “holding”. “Well?”
“I came to check on you. After you woke me at five ranting about Cass, and then again at six, Talia kicked me out of bed.” He pauses to glance back toward Gil’s office. “It appears sending me here was a smart call.”
“I can’t fucking believe Cass had to stay the night. Is there any way to rush the test results?”
Bash snorts. “We are rushing them, but short of opening the lab earlier and conducting the tests myself, no. We’ll have the results by ten, Cald. Calm down.”
“What if neither of the assholes turns out to be Celeste’s baby daddy? What happens to Cass?”
“Felicity says what they have on Cass is very circumstantial.”
“Then why the hell go through this ruse?” I say, flinging my arms wide.
“Because, short of having other suspects to go after, Cass is it. And there is a wrinkle, Calder. This is going to turn into a murder investigation.”
I go very still, my heart jumping to a sprinter’s pace. “Did they find Celeste’s body?”
Bash shakes his head. “No, the lab has already ruled that the abandoned car is a murder scene due to the amount of blood found there. Once the lab confirms that the blood is Celeste’s, they will make this a murder investigation and we need to be ready for that. Cass’s past ties to Celeste may be circumstantial, but the police have just enough to make her life hell while they investigate further. They could turn over every minute detail in her life. We’re trying to avoid that for Cass by asking her to stay put while we get the evidence. I think giving the police another suspect will go a long way in keeping her off their radar.”
I shake my head, gut twisting. “I can’t believe that Celeste is dead.” Curling my hands into fists, the churning in my stomach turns into burning knots. “I’m going to bury that sick fuck.”
“You’ll stay on course, Calder,” Bash orders, his expression hard and just as angry. “The last thing I need is you being charged for murder, no matter how justified…”
Bash trails off when two police officers walk into the main door. He and I glance at each other, then walk briskly over to greet them. “What can we do for you, officers?” I ask while ripping open the Velcro fasteners on my grappling gloves.
“Is Gil around?” the tall one with a crooked nose asks.
I gesture to the closed office door. “He’s in there working. I help manage the place. Is there something I can help you with?”
The younger, freckle-faced guy tilts his head. “Do you know all the guys who frequent this gym?”
I tuck my gloves under my crossed arms. “Yeah, I’m responsible for the scheduling.”
The crooked nose cop pulls his phone out and turns it around. “Do you recognize this sweatshirt?”
As I stare at the bloodstained heather-gray sweatshirt with Gil’s Gym and a pair of MMA gloves printed on the front, the guy scrolls to the next picture, saying, “This is the back.” A single name is printed in the center: Rampage.
I swallow the hard rock in my throat. ““That’s Thoma
s’s. The last time I saw him, he was wearing that sweatshirt. We haven’t seen him in months. Where did you get this? Is he okay?”
He pulls his phone back. “We’re just trying to get a name at this point. There wasn’t any ID in the clothes and the body was too decomposed for a visual one.”
“Thomas’s dead?” Gil asks quietly from the open doorway.
As I give Gil a solemn nod, Bash steps forward, his tone all business. “Where did you find his body?”
“Some homeless dude stumbled upon it in an abandoned part of the Lower East Side.”
“Which road?” Bash drills.
The young guy starts to answer, when his partner interrupts, looking at Gil. “Can you provide Thomas’s full name and home address? We’ll need his dental records so we can officially ID him.”
While the officer follows Gil into his office, I ask the younger cop, “Where was he found? It’ll help the guys here with closure if they have the full story.”
He glances at his partner writing down the information from Gil and whispers, “Don’t tell him I told you, but I understand the need for closure. The guy was found in a Dumpster next to the old Opera house in the Bowery.”
Once the officers leave, I follow Bash out, my chest tight. First the news about Cass potentially facing a murder charge, and now this? I’ve never felt so powerless. I fucking want to punch a wall. Cass’s face flickers through my mind. I hate that I can’t be there with her right now. And Celeste…God. I clench both fists, digging my fingers into the gloves. I will find a way to completely destroy Phillip for all the misery he has caused.
“You okay, Cald?”
“I blame myself for not seeing how unhappy Celeste was. I could’ve shared my thoughts on Phillip. I could’ve—”
“Don’t go there.” Bash scowls. “You just found out from Gil how truly despicable Phillip is. Your mom, Celeste, and now the way he has set Cass up to take the fall…they’re all victims of the narcissistic son of a bitch’s maneuverings. A person with sociopathic tendencies like his obviously lives in that space where he believes he’ll never be caught.”
I shake my head and try not to freak about Cass. If I do, I might just lose my shit. Taking a couple of deep breaths, I work to refocus on something less personal. “Okay…back to Thomas. The guys in the gym clung to the belief that Thomas had just gotten frustrated and started over somewhere else, but Gil and I knew he wasn’t the type to run from a fight. Unfortunately, the location where he was dumped wasn’t anywhere near any of the previous secret EUC bouts, so there’s nothing in the location that directly ties it to the EUC .”
“I’m going to have my guys check out the site anyway, while I run down how Thomas died. If he was shot and bullets were recovered, we might be able to help the police connect the dots.”
I nod my thanks. “Call me as soon as you get the paternity results, and Bash…make sure to check that Cass is doing okay—”
Bash puts his hand on my shoulder. “Talia’s already at the station with our lawyer waiting for the lab to call. We’ve got it covered.” When I nod and start to go back inside, his hold tightens. “I shouldn’t have to tell you to watch your back, Cald. I’m sorry about your friend, but I hope this kick-in-the-gut brings things into sharp focus as to where your head needs to be. Winning this fight puts you behind the curtain. I want to know what the hell they didn’t want Thomas to see back there.”
“Go on, jump!” Jake stands to my left, his voice carrying over the howling wind.
I shake my head, my heart screaming inside my chest. I’m on the edge of a cliff overlooking a wide valley. I try to step back, but my feet won’t move. I wobble instead and gasp as I almost pitch forward.
“You know it’s for the best. It’ll be quicker this way,” Phillip says from my right, his hazel eyes turning toward the valley below, showing me where to go.
“No,” I whisper, my voice trembling. Rocks scatter underneath my feet, tumbling down, down until they disappear into the dark cavern.
“She’s gone. That means you no longer exist either,” Phillip speaks calmly, his tone clear and logical.
“You’re the doppelganger who was supposed to die. Not her,” Jake sneers and jabs my shoulder with his knuckles.
When I cringe and try to avoid another jab, Phillip grabs my right arm and tugs, trying to send me over.
I scream with everything I’ve got, and then I hear Calder’s voice in the distance behind me. “Cass, I’m coming!”
“Calder!” I yell and glance over my shoulder, trying to see him. My heart leaps and I try to pull free of Phillip’s hold, but now Jake has grabbed my other arm and is pushing my shoulder forward with the flat of his other hand.
“Calder,” I call out and look back once more. He’s running hard, but he doesn’t seem to be getting any closer.
The toe of my right shoe pushes just over the cliff, and then the left. Both men shove me at once, and I scream as I tumble forward, falling into total blackness…
“Get up, missy.”
My eyes fly open to see a thick-boned woman with short dark hair standing in the doorway. Her police uniform registers and my chest suddenly feels like it’s collapsing.
“Yes?”
She pulls open the door, her stoic face not giving any indication as to what she wants. “Let’s go.”
I sit up in the lumpy bunk bed and glance around the tiny windowless room. I must’ve fallen asleep around eight in the morning. I’d been too anxious to sleep in the cell last night. I wanted to be awake when the news came.
Worry fills me. Were we wrong? Phillip wasn’t the baby’s father? “Where are we going?”
“Paperwork,” she grumbles.
When I see Felicity standing there smiling after we walk through another door, my eyes well with tears and I croak, “Can I go home now?”
She nods. “The police are on their way to Phillip’s house as we speak. Now let’s get this paperwork done and get you out of here.”
As soon as we walk into the front of the police station, Talia jumps up from her chair and hugs me.
“Tell Sebastian I’ll touch base with him later,” Felicity says as I slip on the wool coat Talia brought for me. Squeezing my shoulder, the lawyer smiles and leaves us standing there in the busy station.
“You’re free.” Talia keeps her tone light as she fusses with the buttons on the coat. Making sure I’m fully buttoned up, she pulls me into a really tight hug and whispers harshly in my ear, “Don’t ever worry me like that again. I think I’ve grown a few gray hairs the last few days.” Releasing me, she hooks her arm in mine and walks me out the door. “I’m so glad we got him, Cass. Phillip is going down.”
My stomach pitches as the news sinks in and the cool morning air hits my face. It’s not that I didn’t expect Phillip’s guilt, but hearing it and knowing what that truth means about Celeste’s past makes my heart ache for the loss of Celeste’s and her unborn child’s lives, but also for the loss of her youth and of her innocence. Everything that vile man stole from her.
Somewhere a bird chirps, unsure if it’s spring yet. I glance up as it zooms past, its wings spread wide, and my heart squeezes. I’m free, but Celeste will never be.
I take three steps, but don’t make it any farther.
My legs give out and I sit down in the middle of the sidewalk, letting the tears fall.
I cry harder than I ever have before.
All the hurt I’ve held back rushes out in deep, heart-wrenching sobs.
For the loss of my sister.
The loss of my own innocence.
The loss of myself for years.
For almost dying.
Every bit of pain flows with the tears dripping onto my knees as I grip my wrists.
And Talia holds me. My best friend sits beside me and folds her arms tight around me. Rocking me against her warm body, she says in my ear, “I love you, Cass. I’ll always be here for you. I’m your sister and you’re mine. ‘Til death do us part.”
She giggles and whispers, “Shh, it’ll be our secret.” Wiping the tears from my cheeks, she holds my face, her gaze searching mine. “Are you all right?”
I clasp her hands and squeeze. “I will be. There um…was more going on just now.”
“I know.” Sighing, she pulls me to my feet and tucks a hank of my hair behind my ear. “I also figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready.”
“I told your mom that you’re staying the week with me,” Talia says once we pull away from the station in her car.
“Thank you for covering for me,” I say, staring absently at Manhattan’s busy traffic. Its chaotic normalcy is strangely soothing.
“Sebastian will let Calder know you’re okay,” she continues and I just nod my appreciation. Now that I’ve bawled like a baby, I feel numb and drained. I fold my arms against myself, thankful for the coat she brought. The dress’ thin sleeves are pretty, but not warm at all. Talia had my back in so many ways, but especially the last twenty-four hours. I’ll never be able to repay her, but I can try.
“Thank you so much for Felicity. That woman is a…power pixie.”
Talia chuckles. “Sebastian calls her his pocket secret weapon.”
My eyes widen. “There’s no way he says that to her face.”
“This is Sebastian we’re talking about.” She snorts. “The man never holds back. Though I’m pretty sure he’s the only one who gets to call her that.”
We’re quiet while she maneuvers through traffic, then she says in a casual tone, “I noticed last night that your tattoos were gone. How’d you manage that feat?”
Talia’s trying to draw me out, when all I want to do is crawl inside myself. She’s been here for me and I need to return her friendship.
I lower my hands to my knees and turn them palms up, staring at the bit of bare skin peeking outside of the dress and coat’s sleeves. “Beth covered my tattoos for me. I miss them. I can’t wait to wash the makeup away.”
“Tell me what the raven means. Why do you kiss it every once in a while,” she asks quietly.
Steel Rush (In the Shadows#5) Page 19