Jessie Black Box Set 2

by Larry A Winters

  “No!” Jessie yelled without looking back. The headlights of passing cars flashed against her face, bringing out the shape of her cheekbones and the determined set of her jaw. He knew he wasn’t going to convince her to stop.

  Further along the highway, Raines darted into traffic, risking her life to put more distance between them. Leary didn’t intend to do the same and he hoped Jessie wouldn’t, either. He continued to run along the shoulder, struggling to catch up with Jessie. The concrete jarred his knees. Pain radiated in his bruised ribs. His face burned. Jessie was pulling ahead. He couldn’t keep up.

  A roar rose above the traffic, and Leary looked up into the glare of a searchlight. He blinked and saw a police helicopter in the sky, blades churning. He could hear the wail of sirens, faint but getting louder.

  Fulco had called in the cavalry. Leary felt a rush of unexpected affection for the cop. Not so full of shit after all. The arrival of reinforcements energized him. Jessie would be safe now, or safer, anyway. He lowered his head and pumped his arms. He was only ten feet behind her now, then five.

  A horn blared and a Pontiac Grand Am swerved out of its lane. The smell of burnt rubber assaulted his nostrils. The Grand Am skidded and slammed into the side of the car next to it. Metal ground against metal. Both vehicles careened across the highway. Leary threw himself out of the way. He wasn’t fast enough. The rear corner of the Grand Am clipped him. The impact was a sledgehammer to his side.

  He hit the ground. Screamed as the two cars collided with the concrete wall of the shoulder. Sparks rained across the asphalt. His vision blurred, then focused on a figure looming over him.

  “Leary, can you get up? Leary!” It was Jessie.

  Pain spiked through him. He looked up at her concerned face, seeing it through a haze. She’d stopped and come back for him. Only now, he wasn’t sure he wanted her to.

  “Go,” he said.

  “What?”

  He realized he’d closed his eyes. Dared not open them, afraid the pain would intensify. “Don’t let her get away.”

  “Leary—”

  “Take my gun.”

  “I hear an ambulance,” she said. Her voice a mixture of relief and concern. He heard the siren a second later. Screaming in their direction.

  “Take my gun!”

  “Okay.” He felt her remove his gun from its holster. Then he felt the warm touch of her fingers against his face, and a gentle kiss on his lips. A few seconds later, when he forced his eyes open, she was gone, and so was his Glock.

  Two wrecked cars, the Grand Am and a Honda Civic, smoked no more than five feet from where he lay. The driver of the Grand Am was staring at him with wide eyes, a cell phone pressed to his face. The other driver sat slumped behind the wheel of the Honda, blood running from her ear.

  Gingerly, Leary moved his hands along his body. He found no fractures, no broken bones. A few new cuts and scrapes to join the ones he already had. The right leg of his pants had ripped apart and blood oozed from the leg underneath. It was scraped raw, but that seemed to be the extent of the damage.

  Using the concrete wall of the shoulder for support, he pulled himself up. It hurt, but he could move. He could walk. He squinted into the darkness, but saw no sign of Jessie or Raines.

  The sight of Leary being hit by a car still burned in her mind, but Jessie pushed away the horror of that moment and kept her eyes locked on the running figure of Brooke Raines. There would be time to focus on Leary later. Time to hold him tight and thank God he wasn’t killed. Right now, she needed to finish what she and Leary had started. She pursued the woman with as much speed as she could. Her right hand gripped Leary’s gun and her left balled into a fist.

  A spear of brightness lanced down from the helicopter floating above. There was a circle of light, and Brooke Raines, at its center, lit up as bright as daylight. She was weaving between cars, not far ahead. Jessie ran. Heat hit Jessie’s back and light almost blinded her as she caught up with Raines. “Stop!” She didn’t know if she could be heard over the chopping rotors, but Raines twisted around. “Stop, Brooke! It’s over.”

  Raines glared at her. The woman’s shoulders rose and fell with each labored breath. Her face gleamed with sweat and the look in her eyes was wild. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this!”

  “It wasn’t supposed to end like this for Corbin Keeley, either!”

  An amplified voice boomed, “Drop your weapon immediately and put your hands in the air.” Jessie cursed, realizing the police in the helicopter must have seen the gun in her hand. “Drop your weapon now!”

  There was nothing she could do but comply. She tossed Leary’s Glock onto the street and raised her empty hands. Her gaze never left Raines. She hoped the woman wouldn’t see this as another opportunity to run.

  Raines didn’t run. She lunged. Before Jessie realized what was happening, Raines grabbed the gun off the ground, rolled onto her back, and fired up at the sky. The spotlight burst and they were plunged into darkness as the gunshot’s report echoed in Jessie’s ears.

  Jessie’s breath stopped. Even though there were headlights, her eyes were slow to adjust after the glare of the spotlight. She couldn’t see Raines. Could barely see anything. And Raines was an expert marksman—one who’d just taken out the spotlight on a police helicopter. Jessie braced herself for the woman’s next shot. Imagined a bullet through her face, just like the one that ended Keeley’s life.

  Above her, she heard the roar of the helicopter as it pivoted and lurched in frantic movements. Her sight began to return. Her straining eyes picked out cars and trucks stopped on the road, their drivers cringing low in their seats, faces pinched with fear.

  Then she saw Raines. The woman held Leary’s gun in a two-handed grip, and it was aimed at her. Don’t, she thought. But she didn’t speak the word. If she was going to die tonight, she would do it standing tall.

  Another figure rushed from the shadows and hit Raines, knocking the woman off her feet. The two bodies rolled on the asphalt. One figure ripped the gun from the grasp of the other and threw it out of reach. Jessie ran toward them.

  It was Leary. His face was a mask of resolve as he held Raines to the ground, but at Jessie’s approach, he looked at her and managed a smile. “How’s ... your case ... looking now?”

  41

  Brooke Raines wore an orange jumpsuit. Shackles linked her wrists and ankles. A night in jail had left her eyes puffy and her hair tangled. Jessie thought the look suited her.

  Their meeting was in another cramped attorney room of the courthouse. It looked and smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned in weeks—or maybe the smell was coming from Raines.

  Jessie regarded the woman and her lawyer from across the table. Aidan Hughes sat beside his client in a neatly pressed, charcoal gray suit, with his hands folded in front of him on the table’s battered surface. To his credit, he didn’t feign outrage over the shackles on his client. Jessie was glad. The thought of everything that had happened the night before brought a flare of anger burning through her that was hard enough to control as it was.

  “Before we start,” Hughes said, “I need to know if the same offer is still on the table, given the circumstances.”

  Jessie saw the nervousness in his eyes. She knew what worried him. Many prosecutors, after a defendant’s attempt to flee, would change the offer or revoke it altogether. Jessie would have liked nothing more than to do that now. But if she did, she would be venting her anger, and seeking revenge for her and Leary at the expense of justice for Corbin Keeley and Terry Resta. She couldn’t do that.

  “The offer hasn’t changed,” she said. “If your client provides us with the information and testimony we need, then we will agree not to seek the death penalty.”

  Hughes and Raines exchanged a look. The defense attorney nodded to his client and said, “Go ahead.”

  Raines turned her gaze to Jessie. She hesitated for a second, then said, “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Why don’t you tell
us about the people who hired you to murder Corbin Keeley?”

  Raines flinched at the word murder. “I only dealt with one person. His name is Luther Goyle.”

  “How did you first meet him?”

  Raines took a breath. “You know I’ve been shooting for a long time. Since I was a kid. My dad got me into it. It was something we liked to do together, like a father-daughter thing. I never stopped. I still practice at a range in North Philly called Barker’s, and I compete in events sometimes, although I’m not really that good, compared to the real pros.”

  Jessie knew all of this from the trial, but she sensed that Raines was starting with the easy facts as a way of warming herself up. Jessie let her.

  “I’ve been shooting at Barker’s for years,” she went on, “so I’m on friendly terms with the owner. He’s an older guy, served in the Marines and fought in Iraq during the first Gulf War. He looks a little like my dad, and I guess that’s part of why we get along. One day, when I showed up to use the range, he asked me to come into his office.”

  “When was this?” Jessie asked.

  “Toward the end of May. I can probably get you the exact date if you need it. I’d need to look at a calendar.”

  “We can do that later. Let’s hear the rest of the story.”

  “In his office, Jeff—that’s his name—told me he’d received a call from a man working for a company that was looking for an attractive young woman who was a good marksman. They wanted to sponsor the woman and use her name and likeness for publicity for their company. Jeff thought it might be a cool opportunity for me, and wanted to know if he should give them my name.”

  “You said yes?”

  Raines had a faraway look in her eyes. “I didn’t think anything would come of it, but I didn’t see any harm in trying.”

  “The company reached out to you?”

  “Yes, the same day. A man calling himself Smith asked if I would meet him at a Starbucks in Center City. I agreed. But as soon as the meeting started, I knew something was wrong. For one thing, he didn’t want us to even talk inside the Starbucks. There was a car on the street outside, and he wanted to talk to me in the car. For confidentiality purposes, he said.”

  “Did you get in the car?”

  “Yes.” Raines looked ashamed to admit to her own questionable judgment. “Stupid, I guess. But just getting a call had made me excited. I was already thinking about being some kind of celebrity markswoman.”

  “You said the man called himself Smith. Was that his real name?”

  “His real name was Luther Goyle. He told me that later, after I agreed to … his proposal.”

  “Don’t jump ahead. You got into the car with him. Was there anyone else there? A driver?”

  “No. Just the two of us. But it was a big Town Car, the kind that would have normally had a driver, and Goyle sat with me in the back. So I think he had sent the driver away on some errand so we’d be alone.”

  “You both sat in the back? He didn’t drive you anywhere?”

  Raines shook her head. “The car was parked legally on the street, pretty close to the Starbucks, so he didn’t need to move it. The backseat was roomy, with tinted windows, plenty of privacy. I thought he was going to interview me in the car. That’s what I still thought it was—an interview for a corporate sponsorship.”

  No witnesses to the conversation, Jessie thought. No one who could overhear a stray word. Goyle had probably been prepared to take action if Raines rejected his proposal—violent action. “You weren’t afraid?”

  “Not at first.” Raines’s lips twitched with distaste. “I wanted to believe I could be … I don’t know … some kind of star.”

  “What did he say to you once you were alone together?”

  “He started with an apology. He said he’d set up the meeting under false pretenses. Those were his words. That’s how this guy talks. I was like, ‘What?’ And he said there was no sponsorship and that he’d actually come to discuss a highly confidential matter. He said I could make a lot of money. At that point I was thinking the guy was trying to scam me or worse, so I tried to get out of the car.”

  “Were you locked in?”

  “No. The door opened. But before I could get out, he asked me in a very reasonable voice to please just give him five minutes to explain. For some reason, I did.”

  “You sat back down and closed the door?” Jessie said.

  Raines nodded. “He had an iPad. He played with it for a few seconds, and then passed it over to me. I almost dropped the thing when I saw what was on the screen. It was a photo of a woman. Her face was covered in dark, blotchy bruises. Goyle said he wanted my help stopping the man who’d done this.”

  “Do you know who the woman in the picture was?”

  “I didn’t recognize her at the time. I’m not really into politics—especially local stuff. But it was Nina Long. Corbin Keeley’s ex-wife. Goyle told me, and I recognized her later at the trial.”

  “How did seeing the photo make you feel?”

  Raines’s lips thinned as she seemed to consider the question. “Disgusted, I guess, at first. Then a little angry. How would anyone feel looking at something like that?”

  “What else did Goyle tell you?”

  “That it was a city councilman who did it. That he’d gotten away with it. That no one was going to punish him. Goyle was getting angry just telling me. I thought he was going to have a stroke. He’s very overweight. His face turned red. He said if somebody didn’t stop Keeley, more women were going to get hurt.”

  “Do you believe that was his real motivation for wanting to kill Keeley?” Jessie said. “To protect women?”

  Raines looked at her with a sad half-smile. “I can tell what you’re thinking—that he put on a show for me, tricked me, when what he really wanted was to make a lot of money on a business deal that Keeley was blocking. And that part is true, too. But I think his anger about the abuse was real. No one can fake that kind of anger.”

  “What did you say to him, after he showed you the picture and told you about Keeley?”

  “I said it was terrible, but it had nothing to do with me, and I started to get out of the car again. Then he told me I could make a million dollars and rid the world of Corbin Keeley, with no risk of going to prison, of having to hide the money, or anything.”

  “So you decided to hear him out?” Jessie tried to keep her tone neutral.

  “It’s a lot of money.”

  “What exactly was his proposal?”

  “He said he could arrange for Corbin and me to meet. He wanted me to date the guy for a few months—long enough for his true nature to emerge—and then shoot him when he tried to hurt me. He said with my shooting skills, there would be little risk. And he promised me there would be no legal consequences. He said I probably wouldn’t even be arrested, and that even if I was, any court in the country would call the shooting justified under the self-defense laws.”

  “You said yes?”

  “Not at first. I thought the whole thing was scary and weird. I got out of the car. He didn’t try to stop me, but….”

  Jessie waited, but Raines seemed hesitant to continue. “What were you going to say?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. The way he was looking at me, I could tell he knew I would change my mind. And he was right. I spent the whole night thinking about his offer. A million dollars. Life-changing money. The next morning, I was walking to work and the Town Car pulled up. He rolled down the window and looked at me and said, ‘Just tell me yes or no.’”

  Jessie already knew the answer, but she asked, “What did you tell him?”

  Raines looked at her hands, shackled on the table in front of her. Her eyes seemed to fill with regret. “I told him yes.”

  “That’s how it started?”

  Raines nodded. Her lips quivered and a tear ran from one eye, down her face. “There was a fundraiser at the Children’s Hospital where I worked. Goyle somehow arranged things so that both Corbin
and I would be there, so we could meet. I flirted with him, he asked for my number, we went out a few times and then started seeing each other more seriously.”

  “It played out just like Goyle said it would?” Jessie said.

  Raines shook her head. Her tears were flowing more strongly now, a flood of emotion that Jessie sensed had been bottled up for months. “Nothing happened like he said it would. Corbin never raised a hand to me. He never even raised his voice to me. He was kind, gentle, and sweet. It was terrible, knowing that I was deceiving him. I had to close my eyes and force that picture into my head—the picture of his battered ex-wife.” Her eyes cleared for a moment, and she stared at Jessie with a haunted look. “But mostly I just thought about the money.”

  Jessie swallowed. “And then what happened?”

  “Goyle checked in with me regularly. He was getting impatient. He wanted to know why I wasn’t fulfilling my part of the deal.”

  “Do you know why he was impatient?”

  “Not at first, but when I told him I needed more time, he said there was no more time because an important vote was coming up. I told him Corbin hadn’t done anything violent.”

  “What did Goyle say?”

  “He told me it didn’t matter. He said I could shoot him anyway, and with his history, the police would believe me that I’d shot him in self-defense.”

  “And you agreed to do it?”

  “I was already in too deep to say no, wasn’t I? Goyle and I picked a restaurant with a secluded parking lot. We didn’t know about the security camera or the kid smoking weed in the car. I brought one of my guns. I broke up with Corbin over dinner, knowing he’d chase me outside to try to convince me not to. When I had him out there alone, I did it.”

  “What did you do?” She wanted to hear Raines say it.

  “I shot him in the head.”

  “Goyle helped you plan this?”

  “Most of it was his idea.”

  “At the time you shot Corbin Keeley, was he threatening you?”

  “No.”

  “Did you believe you were in danger?”