“What exactly did Lance do for him? Sell?”
Justin bites the inside of his cheek. “There’s a lot I don’t even know, but from what he’s told me, I assume it was a little of everything.”
“That doesn’t explain why he clung to Kaley so much, since he knew she didn’t know anything.”
“Nothing like that,” he says, avoiding the obvious. “Kaley was becoming suspicious of John, and he had mentioned to Lance that he didn’t want her getting too close to his work, so Lance volunteered to keep an eye on her for him.”
“That’s…awful,” I say, trying to grasp how I would feel if Kip ordered someone to keep tabs on me.
“Lance didn’t tell John much, other than whether or not she was snooping. Lance didn’t want Kaley to know about John as much as John didn’t. It’s what’s kept her out of this mess.”
“You two skirt the rules a lot. I would say you don’t take your jobs very seriously, except you still turned us in.”
He stays looking ahead but becomes serious. “Don’t accuse me of something you choose to stay ignorant to.”
His words bite, and it’s equivalent to throwing a bucket of ice water on my head. For a few minutes there, I forgot we’re not on the same team. “It’s corrupt,” I say.
“All law enforcement and government agencies get away with a lot that people don’t know about. It’s not corrupt,” he says. “It’s the norm.”
We walk back to the parking lot in silence, neither one of us acknowledging the other. I had also forgotten what it’s like to receive Justin’s cold shoulder, and I have to fight the urge to eradicate it. I hang on to it, focusing on the lies and deceit.
“Justin,” I say as we’re about to get into our separate vehicles. He’s standing on the other side of my Honda, his hand braced against the inside of the SUV’s door. “I have a question.” He perks up at the prospect that I might want to understand this, him, a little more. “Did you ever actually get arrested for robbing a store?
Just like when he had to confess his real age, it takes him a moment to respond. “My dad was the chief of police. He was able to use a few connections, so I was never charged.”
I purse my lips. “Was that before or after he got sober?
“Before, why?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Just wondering.”
I’m starting to gather that for the most part, Justin told the truth, or as close to the truth as possible. I’m struggling to cling to those tidbits of information and focusing on all of the inconsistencies. It’s a dangerous thing to want the truth all the while hoping it doesn’t make me question my decisions. It’s so hard when everything is gray with black and white muddled in the middle. I need the divide between the two so there’s no doubt.
I focus on the image of Kip behind the glass partition during visitation, and I hold on to it for my sanity.
I SPOKE WITH MY PROFESSORS, and they agreed to give me the rest of the semester’s work via email. This is a blessing and a curse. I no longer have to worry about getting accosted at school, but now I have to learn all the information on my own, and take all my exams on one day. Can’t pick and choose, I guess.
Kip met with the judge, and his bail was set higher than we can afford, but we already knew it would be. The good news is that the prosecutors are trying to expedite the process. They don’t want a long, drawn-out preliminary meeting, so they’re offering deals to the minor violations. John Monroe has turned down every deal they’ve thrown at him, aiming for as little to no jail time as possible, and the prosecutors want to get him to trial before his attorney can build a case. Not that they have much to worth with—the evidence is really damning. Lance recorded enough audio to not leave anything to question. John Monroe is going to prison. He’s just deluding himself. His wife, on the other hand, is missing. Most likely still in Switzerland, hiding.
So they offered Kip a plea deal anyway. His arraignment is today, and I’m waiting to hear whether or not Kip took it and what it’ll mean for his future. I’m sitting on a bench outside the courthouse, trying to ignore Justin’s smoking habits as I wait to hear a word from Kip’s public defender. That was an entirely different argument within itself as Kip refused to spend money on an attorney or allow me to visit him. He doesn’t like me to see him incarcerated, but he’s going to have to get used to it. There’s a good chance he’s going away for a long time, and I’m not going that long without seeing him.
But for now, I have to live with Justin’s assurances that he knew a decent defender that would do right by Kip, and that’s not saying much considering I trust him all of zilch. But for some ridiculous reason, Kip does, and that just rubs me the wrong way.
I don’t catch his name, but Kip’s lawyer exits the courthouse wearing a brown suit that’s baggy in all the wrong places. I’m not one to pay close attention to attire, but even I can’t miss the atrocity that this man is wearing.
“Miss Foster,” he says, reaching a sweaty hand for mine to shake.
I stand. “Yes?”
“Kip asked me to give you a rundown on what he decided and where he’s headed from here.”
“Okay.”
I sit back down and he follows my lead. “The prosecutors offered Kip a very good deal. According to the evidence, he never actually transported the drugs or had them in his physical possession. He was simply an accomplice.”
“But he didn’t even know that,” I say, trying to defend him.
“And that has all been presented to the court and taken into consideration. Same ethics, I’m afraid,” he says. “From my understanding, Taylor Moore received a plea deal very similar.”
“You still haven’t explained what exactly they offered.”
He opens his briefcase, pulling out a single piece of paper and passing it to me. “Kip pled guilty to two federal counts of conspiracy to transport fifty kilos of cocaine over state lines. He’ll serve eight years in a federal penitentiary. He’ll be eligible for parole in four.”
It’s as if I was standing in the courtroom and the sound of the judge’s gavel ricochets through my body as he reads off the indictment. Eight years. He’ll be over thirty before he’s even considered for early release. But I knew the odds were stacked against him. It could have been worse. The maximum sentence reaches closer to twenty. And with the two counts, he really made out like a bandit. It’s just the finality of it that stings.
The lawyer seems to let me process this before he says, “He’ll be transported by the end of the day. You can visit him this weekend if you would like.”
I blink back my emotions and fold my hands. “He’s okay with that?”
The man smiles, and it’s the first emotion he’s shown since I’ve met him. “He said he knew you would anyway.”
I smile. “He knows me so well.”
He stands to leave. “I almost forgot,” he says, digging in his suitcase once again. “He wanted me to give you this.”
I pull the sheet from his hand. It’s a savings account with far more money than I thought Kip possessed. “Wait, what is this? I mean, how?”
“It’s an account that was opened by your father right before he died. I don’t know the specifics, but everything you need to have to access to it is right there on that paper. You’ll have to speak with Kip if you have any more questions.”
I’m still staring at the paper in disbelief when I feel Justin sit down next to me, having all but forgotten he was even here.
He whistles. “That’s a lot of money.”
I nod, at a loss for words.
“What are you going to do with it?”
I shrug.
It’s filled with more zeros than I thought my parents ever saw in their lifetime. My parents were poor when my dad died. He was just a mechanic making minimum wage. The only way he would have ever made this much money was if he was doing something illegal. It’s extremely fishy that it was opened only a week before he was killed. Maybe Dad wasn’t as innocent as we thought. It’s still
in his name, but Kip and I are down as authorized users.
“Justin,” I say, breaking the silence. “What happened to your Jeep?”
He breathes deep before blowing it out through his nose, blindsided by my question, and equally annoyed. “Are you going to keep building your case against me, Lilly? Is that what you’re doing? Only asking the questions that you know catch me in a lie?”
“It’s a simple question.”
“Don’t deflect,” he says. “You already gathered that it wasn’t mine.” He shakes his head, turning away from me. “Don’t bother speaking to me until you’re ready to see the truth, because I’m tired of your games.”
“Really novel coming from you,” I say to his retreating back.
This really pisses him off and he turns, punctuating every step back toward me. He leans over, using both of his arms to cage me in against the bench. “I never played games, Lilly,” he says, his face turning redder by the second. “Everything I said and everything I did was because I was trying to protect you. If you need someone to direct your blame and anger toward, look at yourself.”
My head physically snaps back from his words, and he doesn’t even flinch. He pushes off the bench, his steely gaze locked on mine as he walks away, leaving me by myself for the first time in weeks. I look around to see if anyone noticed our interaction, but the front stoop of the courthouse is surprisingly vacant.
Good. No one can see the heartache that I’m trying to rope in as I force the lump in my throat down. I give myself five minutes. That’s it. I center myself, concentrating on my feet contacting with the ground, and my heartbeat matching the rhythm.
Justin is pacing outside of his SUV, a cigarette between his lips when I approach, but I don’t look at him as I pass by.
He says my name.
I ignore it.
He says it again.
I open my door and his hand slams it shut. It’s like his words slowly come into focus and I catch the tail end of his sentence.
“…really sorry.”
I try to concentrate on his face, but it takes too much effort, and I open my door and get in. He’s saying something through the window, but it’s muffled. I drive home, and I can’t recall how I got here. I walk inside, Justin on my heels, following me as I undress. I climb into bed, and he sits at the foot, everything he says fuzzy around the edges. I fall asleep feeling like my grasp on reality is slipping, my life jumbled into pieces too confusing to put together.
THE CORRECTIONS OFFICER hands me back my ID, too bored and too busy to bother looking up from her paperwork to make sure I match my identity. With the amount of paperwork and background screenings it took to be approved, it’s strange that it’s so lax to actually get in the facility. The guard points to the rules hanging on the wall and tells me to read over them before I go through the metal detector. After a relatively personal pat down and pocket search, I’m directed through a door and into a room the size of a small cafeteria.
Kip stands from a table in the middle, smiling when he spots me. We hug, only briefly, the rules stating no contact longer than a few seconds, and we sit.
“You look good,” I say, pleasantly surprised by his appearance. His hair is cut shorter than I’ve seen it in years, and he’s wearing a uniform similar to scrubs.
“You look like hell,” he says. “Have you been sleeping?”
“Yes, Kip.”
“Don't roll your eyes at me. You look like you have two black eyes.”
I self-consciously run my fingers under the bags I know are there. Personal experience has told me this doesn't work, they don't magically disappear, but I can still wish.
“School is giving me a run for my money.” I chuckle, but it doesn't create the effect I was aiming for.
“Justin told me you're finishing off the semester from home because one of Jimmy’s pissants attacked you in class.”
I’m flabbergasted. “You talked to Justin? Why would you do that?”
“Lilly, you won’t tell me anything, and he's by your side twelve hours out of the day. If anyone knows what's going on, it's him. And it's on both sides of the equation.”
“You have no right.”
This triggers something in his calm facade. “Tell me that I don't have a right to know what's going on in your life when I'm the one who raised you,” he says, pointing to the table with every word.
Kip's never used the pseudo-father excuse before. I've said it, he's acknowledged it, but he's never incited it himself. He never wanted to overstep our dad's memory or belittle it in some way. But it is what it is, and for Kip to use it now means he's at the end of his rope, so I need to give him some slack.
“Everything's fine. Attacked is an exaggerated term for what actually happened.”
“He had a knife, Lilly.”
“Yes, I was there,” I say. “And why do people only say my name when they're mad at me?”
He sighs. “I don't want to fight. We only get an hour.”
“You're absolutely right,” I say. “We should talk about you. How's prison treating you?”
He smiles. “The food sucks, the people suck, and there’s a perpetual shortage of toilet paper in the commissary.”
I laugh. “Like on back order?”
“Purportedly I should be receiving my share sometime after Christmas. Lucky for me, my bunk mate has a thing for junk food, so I was able to trade two candy bars and a bag of chips for a roll.”
“Are you bored? Do you need me to bring you some magazines or something?”
“I'm allowed to receive a monthly subscription, so I’m going to do that, and they sell mp3 players. They’re supposed to be assigning me a job on Monday, so hopefully it'll give me something to do.”
Kip's attempting to put on a brave face for me, and I need to give that to him. If I look like I'm falling apart or that I feel sorry for him, it'll only make things worse. Kip's a doer, and inside prison he can't do much of anything other than fret over all the things he can't change.
“So…were you ever going to tell me about the bank account Dad left?”
He runs his hands through his hair, folding his arms over the table. “I was going to tell you eventually. I didn't even know it existed until I went through all the paperwork I found in the hall closet a few years ago.”
“That's a lot of money. Where would he have gotten it from?”
He gives me a look. “I don’t know, but I never touched it. I mean, we were surviving without it.”
“Barely,” I say.
“We survived,” he repeats. “But now it's yours.”
“I don't know, Kip,” I say, scared by the thought of possessing that much money.
He shakes his head, already gearing up to argue. He's probably already mapped out all the bullet points in his head. “No shop is going to hire a female mechanic and that's if you find anyone who will actually take you seriously. Once you get into graduate school, you won't be able to work, and you're going to need money to pay tuition and live on. You can't do that working as a waitress or at an ice cream shop.”
“I'll pull out student loans.”
He snorts. “That's your best argument? Are you sure law school is right for you?”
I dig the heels of my hands into my eyes. “Fine. But I'm only taking half. The other half is for you.”
“Agreed,” he says. “I'm going to need you to put money into my account every month if I'm going to keep having to bribe people for toilet paper.”
We laugh, it’s a little too loud, and a guard warns us to keep it down. “Lilly,” he says, growing serious. “I need to tell you something.”
“Kip, I really don't think I need any more surprises,” I say, only partially joking.
His grimace looks painful when he says, “The raid at Toby's was a setup.”
“Yeah…I've kind of gathered that,” I say, sarcastic.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Not in the way you think. Justin, um—” He pauses to clear his throat, a
nd I find myself holding my breath at the sound of Justin’s name. “I knew Justin was undercover.”
Definitely not breathing. Matter of fact, I might be dead because there's no way in hell this is real life. “What,” I mumble.
“Justin came to me after you found the evidence at the shipyard. He met me outside of Toby's the next day, saying he had something he needed to discuss with me. He explained that he was an agent undercover for the DEA and that we had gotten mixed up with a case they've been investigating on John Monroe, a prominent drug trafficker in the area.” He pauses, giving me time to digest what he's told me so far. “He proposed a plan. I would set up a meeting with Jimmy to distract him from the DEA confiscating the evidence at the shipyard.”
“The weekend Justin took me to meet his family,” I clarify.
“Yes,” he says. “We didn't want you to be near if it went bad.”
“But it did.”
He nods, solemn. “When Jimmy found out that his product was confiscated, he retaliated. He held Dan as ransom and demanded that we pay for the merchandise he lost plus interest in twenty-four hours, or he was going to kill him.”
“How did Jimmy know who turned him in?”
“He didn't. Lance said we were just suspect.”
“And how do we know that Lance wasn’t the one that told him?”
“Because Lance tried to warn us that Jimmy was going to jump the gun. We scheduled to meet at Toby's and said we'd bring the money in exchange for Dan. Justin said it would be enough evidence to arrest Jimmy in the act.”
“I was never supposed to be there,” I say, the pieces falling into place.
“No,” he says. “You were never supposed to be implemented in any way. Up to that point, Justin hadn't mentioned your name.”
“It was always supposed to be you who got off scot-free with the plea deal,” I say, horror slowly seeping into my veins.
Kip's smile is melancholy as he nods slowly. “Neither one of us was going to serve time.”
Water pools in my vision and I shakily try to keep them at bay. “This is all my fault.”
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