The time leading up to Addison’s arrival seemed to creep by. I was fully aware of how hot the room was becoming as more people packed themselves into it. Heat prickled at my neck and I swiped at beads of sweat that formed beneath my cluster of thick brown curls. I tugged at my blouse, nervous, as my chest and arms began to flush bright pink. I was just about to excuse myself for a breath of air, when a door to the left swung wide open.
Addison’s docket number was called. She was ushered into the room, dressed in the same pair of baggy gray scrubs and thin black slippers with rubber soles that I’d seen her in the other day, in her temporary holding cell. Her hair was loose and unkempt, covering much of her face, but it couldn’t hide how gray her complexion appeared. A hush fell over the room. Not a single sound outside of the clacking of her handcuffs. It hurt my heart to see her this way, but when I caught Darla’s disappointed frown over Addison’s outfit color, I almost had to laugh. I reminded myself to tell Addison about it after this mess was over.
Once the preliminary trial began, it was difficult to keep track of things. A gross amount of evidence was introduced, evidence I hadn’t even known about. The knife was shown, as was video evidence. It went on and on until my head and my heart were swimming with grief.
That’s not to say that Corbin didn’t put up a fight. Still, it wasn’t enough and it was decided that the case would proceed to trial — pending a deal made behind the scenes, of course. I felt my heart breaking into a million pieces when the judge rapped her gavel to dismiss us. Addison caught my eye as they led her back into exile. I gave her a small smile and a nod, as if to tell her that she’d be okay. I’m not sure if she believed me. I didn’t believe it entirely myself.
Mentally exhausted from the day, Mika, Rory, Carly and I began to trek back towards the front of the courthouse. Carly had called in some favors and we had a police escort back to the hotel. They might not like us sniffing around, but we were still their own and they would take care of us as best they could in light of the circumstances. The media frenzy outside had naturally only intensified over the course of the day. Wearily, the four of us pushed and shoved our way down the stairs and into a waiting police Crown Vic.
I recognized the man behind the wheel instantly. “Ricardo!” I cried, happy to see a familiar face that didn’t look totally lost and forlorn. “They sent you to do the dirty work?”
“I volunteered,” he said with a grin as he quietly pulled away from the curb, careful not to mow down any of the dozen or so reporters that surrounded his vehicle.
I liked Ricardo. He was tall with dark eyes and no trace of facial hair. His arms and belly were soft, but in a way that suggested he still worked out twice a week or so. His smile was easy and he was adorably awkward in a way that only someone truly brilliant at their craft can be.
Given that Ricardo was on the overnight homicide beat, he and I often ran into one another at the scenes of some pretty grisly crimes. If he was on duty when I’d been called in to photograph a scene, he was always kind enough to warn me about what I was going to be walking into. “Volunteered? Why’s that?” I asked, buckling my seatbelt and watching the reporters behind us shrink smaller and smaller, until they disappeared altogether.
“I just wanted to see how you were holding up.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” he said, reaching down into his cup holder. After a few seconds, he passed me back a styrofoam cup. I was once again in the middle backseat. “It’s just tea,” he said. “Herbal or something. I wasn’t sure what you drank.” He looked sheepish as he met the eyes of the others. “They just told me that I was picking up Marian, otherwise I’d have gotten everyone something to calm their nerves. Tea does that, right?”
“I’m the one who called them,” Carly muttered so quietly that only I heard her as she turned to look out of her window.
“It’s supposed to calm you, yes, but that’s quite alright,” Rory told Ricardo with a sniff. “Couldn’t drink tea out of a styrofoam cup anyway.”
I could tell that Ricardo wasn’t sure if Rory was truly an English snob or if he was just faking the accent. I giggled. “Ricardo, before we get back to the hotel, would you mind swinging us through a drive through? I don’t think I could tolerate the ridiculous cost of room service one more time this week. Plus, Carly’s gone rogue on her diet and you can’t go rogue without fries.”
I noticed a smile tugging at the corner of Carly’s lips so I gave her a soft shove with my knee.
After we’d picked up a large bag of burgers, fries and a few soft drinks, Ricardo dropped us off in the alley behind the hotel. It was eerily quiet and I kept expecting a reporter to jump out from behind the dumpster or something. I’d been sitting in the middle of the backseat, again. After Carly, Mika and Rory had slid out, Ricardo turned to study me. “Captain said you and Carly are out on this one, huh?”
I nodded miserably. “If anyone can help clear Addison’s name, though, it’s me,” I sighed. “I know her better than anyone.
“Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want you involved,” Ricardo said gently. “You’re too close. You might pick up things that don’t actually exist. You know how it can be in these situations. You remember last year when my wife-” he paused, and I could see that he was trying very hard not to cry. I reached out, placing a hand on his upper arm, and gently squeezed. Not so long ago, an intruder had shot Ricardo’s wife while Ricardo was sound asleep, resting up for a full night of work. The case had been messy, the intruder never caught, but Ricardo was put on leave until everything had been sorted out and his wife was able to recover.
“I know,” I said gently. “I understand why he’s doing it. I just don’t like it.”
He nodded. “That’s not to say I don’t think you’d make a hell of a detective. I heard all about you helping find your niece last year. That was personal and you obviously were able to keep your head in the game. So I brought you something.” Glancing around conspiratorially, he shoved a green flash drive into my hand. “But you didn’t get it from me. And it might not even be useful. Sounds like Carly might already have her hands on this.” I gave him a questioning look but he turned, placing his hands on the steering wheel. “I have to get going,” he said a little too loudly. I jumped but got the message. Scrambling out of the backseat, I shut the door and watched him drive away.
The other three were waiting for me inside the back door of the hotel, which apparently was the entrance and exit for the kitchen staff. One man, whom I could only presume to be the head chef, given his fancy hat, was giving Mika and his bag of burgers the stink eye. “What was that all about?” Mika asked as we wove our way through the bright, stainless steel kitchen towards the main lobby.
I glanced at the flash drive and shrugged. “I don’t know. But do you have a computer?”
Ten minutes later, the four of us were all hunched together in front of Mika’s slick, silver laptop. As it booted up, we unpacked our greasy, delicious dinner and began to chow down. I didn’t realize that the last time I’d eaten more than a bag of animal crackers had been that morning at breakfast. I was starving.
As soon as the welcome screen popped up, Mika typed in his password. “That could pass for a novel,” Rory joked once Mika had finally pressed ENTER.
“I have a lot of information in here,” Mika responded. “Information that I’d prefer was difficult to retrieve should my laptop ever go missing.”
“Passwords are easy to hack,” Carly told him smugly. “You should know that. You hack for a living. The new laptops are all about fingerprints.”
“Next thing you know, they’ll have eye scanners,” I countered, swallowing a huge bite of burger. A light stream of grease began to trickle down my hand, onto my arm and I playfully lapped it up like an eager puppy.
“I’d rather have my finger cut off than my eyeball plucked out,” Rory shuddered. I paused mid-lick. We all stopped and turned to look at him, mildly disgusted. “What?” he shrugged. “It’s going
to happen in the future. You’ll see.”
“Someone is feeling morbid,” Carly critiqued, wrinkling her nose.
“I finally convince the love of my life to date me. Just a few months later, she’s taken away and thrown into jail — possibly forever. I have no reason to be anything but forlorn and yes, my dear, morbid.” His voice had taken on a grave tone.
Carly gasped, which I thought was a bit of an odd reaction to Rory’s response, but then she started to point at Mika’s computer screen. I turned to look and promptly smacked my hand over my mouth. “Ohmigawd,” I said, slightly breathless.
The flash drive contained grainy black and white footage of Addison, standing in the entryway of Carmen’s hotel room, knife in hand. Ricardo had somehow managed to slip us a copy of the hotel security tapes.
“I can’t believe it,” Carly cried happily. “I’ve been trying and trying to get the video that they sent to my phone to work, but the link was broken. Someone must have found out about it and cut me off – this is wonderful!” She clapped her hands in joy.
“I thought we were banned from seeing these,” Rory hissed nervously. “Weren’t we banned from seeing these? What if someone finds out that we have this?”
“Slap on the wrist,” I promised easily, though I wasn’t totally sure. “Wait a minute.” I squinted hard at the screen. “What was that?” I asked, pointing at Addison, who hadn’t moved much outside of her increasingly distressed breathing.
“What?” Rory asked, nearly pushing his nose to the screen where I’d pointed.
“That,” I said, pointing. “Her hair. Mika, can you rewind?”
He complied. Once the footage began to replay, the slight movement happened again almost immediately. “Her hair moved,” Mika noticed, squinting to get a better look. “There!” he said pointing as Addison’s hair rustled slightly, as if there were a light breeze dancing through the hotel room.
“What does that prove?” Carly asked, shrugging. As she sat back, she popped a large crinkle fry into her mouth and began to chew. “Could just be that the air vent came on while Addison was standing in the lobby of the room.”
“Was there an air vent in the front room?” Mika asked, turning to me. “I can’t remember.”
“Me either,” I answered honestly. “I guess I didn’t even think to look for one.”
“What if it isn’t an air vent?” Rory demanded. “What else do you think it could it be?”
Mika shrugged. “A lot of things. Could be that a window was open.”
I felt as if I’d been punched in the gut. My dream from last night came rushing back to me in scattered pieces, none of which seemed to fit together. I heard Carly calling my name, but it sounded far, far away. Gently, I pushed myself off the couch and began to wander towards Mika and Rory’s bedroom. Their large beds had been neatly turned down for the night by maid service. A chocolate piece wrapped in pretty gold and silver foil lay on each of their pillows. I’m not sure why, but I was drawn to the windows. Heavy, crushed velvet curtains hung from thick metal rods. White, almost gossamer, curtains floated softly, pushed by the light breeze of the air conditioner, which seemed to be running full blast. Goosebumps sprang up across my arms, but I didn’t try to rub them away.
I heard Mika enter the room behind me, but his voice too, was far away. I stepped all the way up to the windows and gently pushed aside the curtains. Far below us was the city street. The sky was growing dark as the sun continued to dip on the horizon. Rush hour traffic had come and gone. I allowed my arms to take on a life of their own. My hands ran along the windowsill, feeling around for what, I’m not quite sure. Suddenly, there was a hand on my shoulder. I jumped, snapping out of whatever had been holding my memory fast.
“Can you hear me?” Mika was asking, gently squeezing my shoulder.
I blinked and turned to him. “My dream.”
He looked worried, then confused. “What dream?”
I shook my head and tried to piece it together, but I couldn’t. “Nevermind.”
Slowly, he and I returned to the living room, where Rory and Carly continued to pour over the security tapes. “Why would he give them to us if they didn’t contain a clue?” Rory was asking. “He’s got to know that Marian has been asking around the station.”
“Maybe that’s the only reason,” Carly responded. “Maybe he only gave them to her to prove why they think she’s guilty. Maybe he’s just throwing us a bone. You heard him say it. He knows we’re frozen out of the case.”
“I don’t buy it,” Rory said, shaking his head. They both looked up when they heard Mika and I enter the room. “Woah. Marian. You okay, kid?”
I smiled at the moniker. “Kid” was an American term that Rory had somehow picked up when he moved to The States several years ago. His accent hadn’t changed, nor had his British slang but, somehow, he still managed to sound like an old Western movie. “Yeah, I don’t know what that was about,” I promised with a shrug. The three of them stared at me until I shifted uncomfortably. “Did you find anything?”
“Nothing that is going to stand up in a court of law,” Carly said dully. “Did he tell you why he gave you these?”
I shrugged. “He said you might already have them and they may not be much use. I don’t think he’s actually studied them, I think he just wanted us to have something, you know? Feel like we weren’t useless.” I paused. “You remember when his wife – well – anyway, he knows what it’s like to feel helpless.”
“It would be great if we could get into that room, somehow,” Rory suggested. “Find out if there’s an air vent or if there’s another reason Addison’s hair started blowing around.”
“I’m fresh out of ideas,” I told them, sagging into the overstuffed loveseat. It looked an alarming lot like the one that Addison had been sitting on in Carmen’s room while the police were questioning her. I allowed my hand to wander over the cushions. “Honestly, the only thing I can really think right now is how amazing sleep sounds. Today was a real mental suck.”
We all sat there quietly. I found myself wondering how Addison was taking everything, when Rory’s cell phone began to ring. He pulled it from his pocket, squinted at the number, hesitated, then answered with a gruff “hello?” I strained to listen, catching a bit of a pre-recorded voice. Rory’s eyes widened. “I think it’s Addison.” He pulled the phone from his ear, punched a number, pressed the speakerphone button and, in a near whisper, answered with another “hello?”
“Baby, Muffin, Sugar Pie!” someone bleated loudly from the other end of the line.
“Addison!” we all cried in unison.
A pause, then, “Is Marian there with you?”
“And Mika and Carly.”
“But not James,” Addison spat, somewhat sullen. “Corbin said that he thinks…well, nevermind what Corbin said. I don’t want to talk about the case. I miss all of you so much.”
“We miss you too,” I said, gulping back tears. I hadn’t realized just how much her missing presence was affecting me.
“I don’t have much time left,” Addison insisted. “I just wanted to- well- I guess, pretend like I wasn’t here for two minutes. Today was awful, wasn’t it?”
“We’re going to get you out,” I promised.
“I have to pee in front of other people,” she whispered.
“What?” Mika asked, confused.
“It’s so terrible in here,” Addison continued. “There’s a sink and a toilet and a mattress in my cell. I refused to use the toilet for like, days. But all of you know how I get when I don’t eat and drink much of anything. So I was trying to not eat or drink what they’d give me with meals, but then I finally had to give in and it was the most awful-anyway, I finally couldn’t hold it any longer. I sit down to go and a guard stopped in front of my room and watched me. Just watched while I sat there half-naked on the toilet seat. Watched me pee. Watched me wipe. Watched me pull up my pants. It was humiliating. He even whistled. When I’m no longer at risk for going into
solitary, I’m finding out who that asshole was and I’m punching him.” Her horrific monologue came out in one long breath. After she’d finished, we could only sit there, quiet and ashamed that we hadn’t been able to do more to get her out of that hellhole. Suddenly, I heard Addison’s Lamaze breathing slowly begin to rise and fall, cresting through the phone line like a white flag atop a sinking ship. Her S.O.S. Her only sign of weakness — the only way that anyone could tell she was cracking under pressure. “They’re telling me I have to hang up.”
Her words snapped me back into the present. “Addison, was there an air vent in Carmen’s suite?”
“What?” Addison asked through labored breathing. “Marian, I’m kind of freaking out here and-”
“Was there an air vent?” I cried, snatching the phone from Rory. Somehow I hoped that by crying louder into the line, she’d realize the vast importance of this question. She’d somehow know and give us a response before it was too late. “This is very impo-”
The other end of the line went dead. Rory snatched the phone back from me and pressed the speaker off, then on again. The call ended on his end. “No,” he said, punching the dial back and getting a busy signal. “Nooooo!” he howled.
Alllison Janda - Marian Moyer 03 - Scandal, Temptation & a Taste of Flan Page 10