by Cari Hunter
“Lyssa Mardell was a good friend of mine.” His voice was low, the threat unmistakable. “You deserve everything you get, you vicious little queer.”
His hand still on her collar, he hauled her to the first cell and shoved her inside so forcefully that she collided with the breezeblock wall opposite. Despite having the wind knocked out of her, she turned as quickly as she could, knowing she was too vulnerable with her back to him. He stared at her for a long moment, his fists clenching and unclenching, before he seemed to regain control of his temper, spat at her feet, and walked out of the cell. A key ground in the lock, the viewing hatch slammed shut, and she listened to his footsteps fade.
As soon as there was silence, her legs buckled beneath her. She slumped where he had left her, against the rough wall.
“Fucking hell,” she whispered, irrationally relieved to be locked alone inside a tiny cell.
She stayed on the floor until her various aches settled to a tolerable level. Then she pushed to her knees, using the wall to help her stand. Turning in a slow circle, she took stock of her surroundings—not that there was much to take stock of, the cell being barely eight feet square. Devoid of natural daylight, it relied on a harsh overhead light that cut into every corner. The length of one wall was dominated by a solid raised slab, on which a rubber mattress had been thrown, and a small metal toilet with a discolored rim was bolted onto the adjacent wall. Someone had obviously tried to remove the stains and smears littering the paintwork, but it had been a halfhearted effort, and the heat trapped in the tiny space intensified the foul smell.
Sitting as close to the edge of the mattress as she could, Sarah tried to find a position that would relieve the strain on her bound arms. She groaned as she felt sweat begin to trickle down her chest and her back. She felt thirsty but sick to her stomach, and she was already missing Alex terribly. When she closed her eyes, the light was still bright, the silhouette of the toilet lingering on her retina. She kept her eyes closed, letting the image melt away, and wondered how long it would be before someone came for her.
*
Alcohol was strong on Caleb’s breath as he gripped Leah around her waist and pulled her to sit on his knee. Holding her in place with one arm, he used his free hand to increase the volume on the television set, drowning out the music playing in the apartment below theirs.
“What goes around comes around, bitch,” he said, throwing the remote down and picking up his beer. Leah froze, assuming at first that he was speaking to her, but he was watching the screen intently, his grin widening to reveal his teeth.
She recognized both of the young women in the news report. The upper left corner of the screen held an image of the paramedic Caleb had murdered. It was a stock photograph, the same one used in the newspapers piled up on the table. The remainder of the screen was dominated by footage of Sarah Kent being paraded in front of the cameras by the police. With the media unaware that she had once used a different name, the scrolling banner touted the arrest of “Sarah Hayes” and made no mention of any other suspects being sought in connection with the murder. That Caleb had known this all along was so obvious that Leah felt ashamed for not having figured it out before. Since the night of the murder, his contact must have kept him informed as to what the police were doing and who their main suspect was, which explained why he had been confident enough to stay in the area. Not only had he killed an innocent woman, he was now sitting gloating as another was wrongly accused of the crime.
He raised his bottle to salute Sarah as someone in the crowd threw a missile at her, and then he pulled Leah down into a kiss. His mouth was sticky against hers. “Just the cop left now,” he said. “An eye for an eye. So I guess she gets to pay for my daddy.”
His beer slipped from his fingers, spilling foam onto the carpet.
“I’ll get you another,” she said quickly, trying to prevent a violent reaction, but his eyes were already half-lidded and he didn’t stir when she slid from his knee. She left a fresh bottle beside him and went to sit by the window.
Gazing at the perfect blue sky, she tried to block the television images from her thoughts: two lives ruined, and he was already plotting to ruin a third. A sudden surge of nausea made her mouth water. She opened a pack of saltines and ate one to ease the sickness that plagued her all day. She was never sure if it was caused by the baby or Caleb. Clean air drifted through the open window from the river below; she looked out onto the wide, constant flow of water. On the riverbank, a child threw bread for the geese and clapped his hands in delight when they ate it greedily. She traced her fingers across her abdomen, her imagination springing to life, giving her a glimpse of what could be possible for her and her baby. In that single moment, she felt a burst of happiness. Then, as if a switch had been flicked, it was gone.
*
Alex had started out sitting on the sofa and ended up perched on the edge of the coffee table, as close to the television screen as she could get and still focus. The local cable channel had interrupted its regular schedule of soaps and crappy game shows to air a special bulletin featuring Sarah’s arrest. For almost two hours, Alex had watched an unvarying loop of footage showing Emerson leading Sarah into the police station.
Shards of glass in the far corner of the room picked up the colors on the screen and reflected them back at Alex. The anger that had made her smash the bowl against the wall had slowly dissipated, taking with it the shock and hatred and leaving her only a bitter grief. As a police officer, she had always considered perp walks to be a necessary evil, something that her superiors clamored for and that she tried not to think about too deeply. Watching Sarah undergo the ritual humiliation, knowing that she was innocent and yet presumed guilty by everyone there, forced Alex to see the process in an entirely new light. That Quinn had arranged it, or at the very least approved it, hurt her more than she would ever have expected.
As the commercials began, she stabbed a finger on the mute button and picked up her phone, but found there were no voice mails or e-mails from Castillo. Intent on doing something, anything that might help, she collected her keys, fastened her Glock onto her belt, and went into the kitchen. Emerson would still be at the station, which meant she had time to get to Ruby and find his apartment, maybe even ask a few questions if any of the neighbors proved cooperative.
About to unlock the back door, she hesitated, looking at the answer machine. Sarah would have the right to three phone calls. As Alex had already arranged a lawyer for her, she would undoubtedly use those privileges to call home. Uncertainty seized Alex; she knew there were numerous places out on the road where she would lose her cell phone signal. The possibility of missing a call from Sarah made her decision an easy one, and she threw her keys down so hard that they skidded along the countertop. Leaving them where they landed, she clicked the switch on the kettle.
When the coffee was ready, she carried her mug and a slice of fruitcake through into the living room, setting them on the table next to her cell phone and the house phone. She turned the television back on but left it silent; it wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. As soon as she was settled, Flossie sat on her knee and began to purr, oblivious to her agitation. Biting the skin at the side of her fingernail, Alex watched Emerson shield Sarah from the crowd and tried her best to figure out why the hell he would bother to do that if it was his scheming that had put her there in the first place.
*
The scratch of a key in the lock made Sarah jolt her head up. She wanted to move, to push herself into the farthest corner until she knew who was coming through the door, but her body refused to obey her commands quickly enough. For all Quinn’s reported haste, he had left her in the cell for what felt like hours, and the pain from her restrained wrists had not only exhausted her but rendered her unable to focus on anything else. If he had intended to break her down prior to interrogation, he had done a good job.
Annoyed by her passivity, she forced herself to sit up properly, ignoring the spasms that
ran like electric shocks into her numbed fingers. The door opened slowly, and the officer who had processed her stepped over the threshold, holding a bottle of water in one hand and a set of keys in the other. Reminding herself that she had survived far worse, she remained perfectly still as he sat right beside her, invading her personal space. That she didn’t cower or otherwise react seemed to disconcert him; he pushed back so that his thigh was no longer touching hers, but then, as if punishing her for his own lapse, he took hold of her handcuffs and casually lifted them.
“Oh God, don’t…” She tried to twist away but he caught hold of her hair.
“You listening to me?” he hissed, raising the cuffs another inch.
Too breathless to answer, she nodded.
“I’m going to take these off now, and you’re going to play nice, drink your water, and not breathe a fucking word about them to anyone. Y’know why?” He gave her head a shake, mocking her inability to speak. “Because a good buddy of mine is working the night shift down here, and he knows how to turn that little camera off too.”
He let go of her and she bowed her head, breathing through her mouth until the pain became bearable and she no longer felt faint. By the time her vision cleared, he had taken the cuffs off, but her arms were deadened and useless and she couldn’t lift her hands. He held the bottle of water to her lips, tipping it too high. It was evident from his haste that he was working to a deadline. She struggled to swallow quickly enough and water spilled onto her shirt, making him grin. She didn’t care. The cell was stifling and the water gloriously cold; he could’ve emptied the bottle over her head and she would have smiled and thanked him for his trouble. She licked her lips, savoring the last droplets as he screwed the lid back on. She felt better, calmer, now that she knew Quinn was unaware of what his subordinate had done to her. She could cope with one man’s vendetta; a conspiracy involving Avery’s entire police force had been a far more terrifying prospect.
The officer was scrutinizing her, obviously reluctant to take her anywhere until she had recovered enough to avoid rousing suspicion. She made him wait as she massaged her wrists and rotated her aching shoulders. When he checked his watch for the third time, his forehead already running with sweat, she finally relented. Placing her hands back in her lap, she waited for his next instruction.
“Your lawyer is here to see you,” he said, surreptitiously dabbing at the dampness on his upper lip. “Play nice, remember?” He yanked her up by her arm, grinding his fingers into her bicep.
“I remember.” She forced the words out.
He took her out of the cell and past the desk, walking her beneath the camera whose light was now blinking reassuringly. He held open the door of a small washroom and pushed her inside.
“Two minutes,” he told her. “Clean yourself the fuck up.”
*
Bridget Reagan shook Sarah’s hand firmly.
“Call me ‘Bridie,’” she said, by way of introduction. She was a small woman with an unassuming demeanor, but when she caught sight of the bloodied bandages around Sarah’s wrists, her eyebrows arched almost to her hairline.
“Are they treating you okay?” Her tone implied she already knew the answer.
“I’m fine.” Sarah tucked her hands beneath the table. There had been a fresh bar of soap in the washroom, but the officer hadn’t thought to bring clean dressings to cover up the evidence of his abuse.
“Mmhm.” Bridie fixed her with a look. “Let me know the instant you’re not ‘fine.’ I understand that you don’t want to rock the boat right now, but letting them hurt you is not an option, okay?”
“Okay.” Sarah nodded but said nothing further, the officer’s threat still fresh in her mind.
Bridie sighed but chose not to push the issue. She opened the file in front of her and uncapped a pen. “I already met with Alex, who gave me a rundown. I just need to go over the salient points before Quinn and the ADA get their hooks into you. Oh, and”―she held up a finger as if to excuse her absentmindedness and pulled a small foil-wrapped package from her briefcase―“Alex sends her love.”
Sarah couldn’t stop herself from smiling as she unwrapped the purple foil. Within it were three squares of Cadbury’s chocolate. She broke them apart and offered one to Bridie.
“No, thank you, but you go ahead. It took me long enough to get it approved by Quinn. Strangely, he couldn’t confirm that you’d been given anything at all to eat since your arrest.”
Sarah bit at the edge of a piece, nibbling daintily in deference to Bridie. When she heard Bridie chuckle, she gave in and put the entire chunk in her mouth.
“I’ll give you a moment, shall I?” Bridie asked.
Sarah spoke around the melting chocolate. “I’m good. Go ahead.”
Bridie nodded, her pen poised at the top of a fresh sheet of paper. “So…tell me exactly what happened on the day that Lyssa Mardell was murdered.”
Chapter Ten
Quinn pressed the button on the tape recorder and then stated the names of those present in the interview room, the date, and the exact time. It was later than Sarah had thought, which explained the pain just above her right eye. Hours of stress and dehydration had given her a pounding headache, but Bridie’s request for medication had been denied. With Sarah’s arraignment scheduled for the following afternoon, Quinn had refused to postpone the interview, and Sarah, wanting to expedite the inevitable appeals process, had stopped Bridie from objecting.
Sitting beside Quinn, Emerson looked long and hard at Sarah’s wrists before meeting her gaze. Unable to tell whether his concern was disingenuous, she kept her expression blank, leaving him to draw his own conclusions. She had been in the cell for six hours; if he had been so worried about her, why hadn’t he checked on her during that time?
A swish of paper diverted her attention to the woman sitting to Quinn’s right. On starting the tape recorder, he had identified her as Assistant District Attorney Linda Kryger, and he didn’t waste time introducing her formally to Sarah. Most of Sarah’s legal knowledge had been gleaned from television shows where ADAs struggled altruistically for the good of society while private legal practice raked in all the money. Kryger, however, with her expensive tailored suit and beautifully manicured nails, didn’t appear to be laboring on the breadline.
She had taken a series of glossy photographs from a folder and now placed them in front of Sarah one by one, lining them up in a sequential horror show. Transfixed, Sarah stared at the images: a detailed shot of Lyssa’s eyes wide open and lifeless; Lyssa’s blood-soaked body splayed on the ground; Lyssa’s body washed and naked on the slab, with two stab wounds marring the pale skin of her torso. Sarah drew that final image closer and traced a finger over the second wound.
“He stabbed her twice?” she whispered. No one had told her that. She shuddered at the violence implicit in the photograph. The abdominal wound was a wide, thick line just below Lyssa’s navel, obviously deep and, given its proximity to the aortic artery, probably fatal. It explained the massive blood loss evident when Sarah had attempted resuscitation. She had never thought to look for other wounds, and she found herself fervently hoping that Lyssa had died or lost consciousness before she had had time to understand what was happening.
Instead of answering Sarah’s question, Quinn tossed another set of photographs on top of those already laid out. “Explain how you got these injuries, Sarah.”
The images were close-up shots of her own hands, the slash marks and lacerations too numerous to count. She glanced at Bridie for guidance, getting a short nod in return. In their earlier meeting, Bridie had advised her not to go into unnecessary detail and to answer as succinctly as she could.
“The blade was in the way as I did CPR. I cut myself on it.”
“And this one?” Kryger asked, with a pleasant lilt to her voice. She took her pen and separated the photographs, revealing one that Sarah hadn’t noticed. Using two fingers on its margins, Sarah turned it slightly, her heart sinking as she saw it
s focus. She had no recollection of the photograph having been taken, but the CSI must have zoomed in on the marks while she was documenting the knife wounds.
“Bandit, my cat, he scratched me that afternoon,” she said, knowing how implausible it sounded. The three angry raised welts across her wrist looked exactly like those made by fingernails.
Quinn folded his arms, pushed his chair away from the table, and gave her a self-satisfied, condescending smile. “Did you know Lyssa Mardell was gay?”
“No,” she replied mildly. She was surprised he hadn’t mentioned this before.
“You didn’t know?” His tone made no secret of his incredulity. “All those cozy little afternoon sessions and she never confided in you? Not once?”
“No,” she repeated. “Lyssa wasn’t gay; she was bi.”
“By what?” For a moment, his own ignorance made him falter.
“Bisexual,” she said quietly, trying not to bait him. “She slept with men and women.” Technically, Lyssa had always described herself as a “try-sexual,” as in, she’d try anything once, but that was none of Quinn’s business.
“Were you sleeping with her?” he snapped, clearly embarrassed by his mistake.
“No, I wasn’t sleeping with her.”
He ignored that, warming to his theme. “We have testimony from a number of witnesses claiming you and she were real familiar with each other as soon as Alex’s back was turned.”
He paused, but Sarah refused to dignify his statement with a response. She wasn’t certain she could have kept it civil.
He took one of the photographs and studied it as if giving due consideration to what she had told him. It was a transparent ploy; he was building up to something.
“Don’t you think this CPR story is a little too convenient?” he asked at length, looking at Kryger, who nodded confirmation to his entirely rhetorical question. “It conveniently explains away your injuries, injuries that are consistent with defensive wounds. It conveniently explains why your fingerprints are all over the blade of the knife.” He put the photograph down and tilted his head at her. “Shall I tell you what I think?”