Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption

by Jo Richardson

  I shrug it off and move on to more questions.

  “So what, my testimony is shit now? They know I’m an eyewitness, right? The night I picked him up was─”

  “Doesn’t matter, Stiles,” Davenport explains. “Without the other, yeah, basically. Your testimony, most unfortunately, is shit. I mean, you’re not the most reliable source these days.”

  I huff, disgusted with the system. “The fuck did you even ask me to come for, then?”

  “Stiles.” A word of warning from the dick himself, but honestly, he doesn’t bother me as much as my brother’s silence. There’s no way I’ll get anything out of him, though.

  Not with the state’s attorney and Dick Walker around.

  “It was everything combined that was gonna help put this guy away, but you alone?” He makes a face that resembles a cartoon character trying to figure out where his balls are, and I get it.

  I fucking get it.

  And I have zero time to waste arguing the topic, so…

  “Say no more.” I hold a hand up to him and wave. Sort of. “Gentlemen.” I nod to Nick. “Bro. Since you won’t be needing my services, I’ve gotta see a bail bondsman about a runner.” I back down the hallway a bit then make a run for it. Figuratively speaking, that is. I run for no one unless my paycheck is at risk.

  I’ll back Nick into a corner later to see what in the hell all the cryptic BS was about. Maybe he’ll actually tell me.

  Probably not.

  “Oh, well.” When I get to the elevator it’s already open. As I take the ride back down to the ground floor, despite my attempt to blow off what just happened, everything is too damn loud inside my head.

  Besides the fact that yet another Redemption asshole is getting off scot-free today, I’ve lost gas, time, and not to mention much needed sleep.

  As I leave the building and step out into the chilly, overcast day, my stomach grumbles.

  And I’m fucking hungry to boot.

  I need breakfast. Fast. And maybe a nap before I go see Tricky Ricky. But when I witness an argument going on, roughly ten feet away, I call for a change in the game plan.

  Emma Green stands there, flustered with every ounce of her being, in a heated discussion with none other than her smartphone.

  Why am I not surprised?

  Her back is toward me so she doesn’t know I’m there as she growls out in frustration.

  “No, Siri, call Dad.” Eventually, she gives up on the voice dial feature and begins to frantically type something instead. As she taps away at the buttons, she’s jabbering incoherently, and I think about what my options are here.

  Obviously, she’s focused on whatever it is she’s talking about. The intensity in her body language tells me it’s something serious. At least in her world it is.

  In reality, she’s probably late for a deadline on some story about a poor schmuck who thought she wanted a quote for honorable reasons as opposed to circulation numbers.

  Therefore, the only logical thing for me to do is fuck with her.

  I take a few quiet steps in her direction, and when I’m an arm’s length away, I tap her on the shoulder.

  “Whatcha doing there, Green?”

  A blur of brown hair smacks me in the face, the iPhone flies through the air, and before I can laugh at the alarmed expression she’s wearing, the woman decks me. Right in the fucking lip. Like she’s on the set of a Bruce Lee movie or some shit.

  “Ow! Fuck!”

  I bend over and cover my face in case blood is about to splatter the sidewalk. It doesn’t but I can taste iron which means she broke the fucking skin.

  Damn, she’s got a right hook on her.

  Someone explain to me why I find that shit sexy.

  I stand up straight again. No way I’m giving her the satisfaction of knowing it hurts like hell. Green’s eyes are wide and horrified. When she sees I’m fine, they turn to relieved and then she realizes it’s me.

  Now I’m rewarded with the infamous bitch face.

  Nice.

  Green backs away, slow like, and wipes her hands against her outfit to regain her composure.

  Because I’m the one with cooties here.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Her brow creases and her eyes are angry.

  “Me? What the—”

  “Sneaking up on someone like that.” She looks around on the ground, for her phone, I’m assuming.

  “You just—”

  “You scared the shit out me, Stiles.” She finds it and bends over to pick it up. That tight ass of hers is flaunting itself. She catches me staring when she’s up straight again.

  Damned tight asses.

  “I’m reporting you.” She points a finger at me and stomps off. The clickity-clacking of her shoes echoes throughout the area.

  “Reporting me? I should fucking report your ass for assault.”

  Green spins. “Assault?” She tilts her head slightly so she can hear me better. She’s practically amused for Christ’s sake.

  “That’s right. Men are assaulted by women every day,” I inform little miss crazy pants. “They don’t make a complaint necessarily because it might somehow jeopardize their manhood. In this case, I’m glad to make an exception.”

  Green’s mouth falls open and her eyes begin to narrow. She stands there, staring at me like that for an eternity before she decides something and shakes her head.

  She turns to go again, then spins back to face me one more time. She’s about to say something, and it looks to be a doozy, except something catches her eyes behind me, and she points.

  “Who is that?”

  “Who is what?” I turn to see where she’s pointing.

  “Who is that?” She takes me by the arm and pushes me in the direction she’s talking about and points more directly this time. Just as the someone pulls themselves behind a tree, I catch a glimpse of them. I can’t say I get a good look at the person, they’ve got a hoodie pulled over their face, but I know who it is.

  “Shhhhhit.”

  I’m calling my therapist out on the whole breathing bullshit next time I see her because it is definitely not working right now.

  “Do you know that person?” Green presses.

  “Unfortunately,” I tell her. Without thinking, I tug her along by the wrist until we’re around the corner where my one-time blind date turned stalker can’t see us.

  Green, of course, slows me down by walking forward but looking backward.

  “Who is he?”

  “She,” I correct.

  “What?”

  “It’s a she, Green. He’s a she.”

  We stop and I shove Green against the cold concrete, then lean across her to peek around the corner.

  “Well then, who is she?” she whispers as I check to see if my friendly neighborhood stalker is still lurking. Not that I can concentrate very well with Green breathing against my neck like that.

  It’s not that big a deal, really. The stalker, that is.

  Lilah Gooding is harmless, if I’m being honest. However, because I happened to have found her sleeping in my car while she waited for me to get off work a couple times, combined with the fact that she nearly killed herself attempting to climb into my apartment through the cracked window Frodo uses to come and go, she was awarded a special document from certain officials in Redemption warning her to keep herself more than a hundred feet away from me at all times.

  She’s pretty good at staying within the law, by the way.

  “An old acquaintance.” I’m not about to go into the gory details of a relationship that never happened with a reporter who’s most likely itching to give the public all the juicy, inaccurate details of said non-relationship.

  “Why is she following you?” Green whisper-yells this time.

  She’s kinda cute when she’s going all undercover.

  No, Stiles, she’s not.

  I really need to stop finding this woman even remotely attractive.

  When I’m confident Lilah is no longe
r spying on me, I relax a little. But Green’s neck is still stretched out as far as it’ll go as she tries to catch a glimpse of Lilah.

  “She’s gone,” I tell her, and I dare say, the reporter in Green looks disappointed.

  “You sure get around,” she jibes, avoiding eye contact with me.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I’m closer than I would have expected to be to her. With the amount of tension building between the two of us, she might have elaborated had we not been so rudely fucking interrupted by some douchebag with bad taste in casual attire and terrible social skills.

  I’m suddenly forced aside and out of the way before I can tell him to suck a bag of dicks for interrupting a very important conversation. Seriously, who walks up to a person and kisses them like that? But more importantly, why in God’s name is he kissing Green?

  He’s on her hard, too. Like he wants to swallow her whole and it’s fucking gross.

  “Helloooooo.” I wave a hand and they break apart.

  Green is breathless. If I could roll my eyes any more than I am, I might see out the back of my head, for Christ’s sake.

  “Hi, babe.” Mystery guy says to her. My resting dick face says it all. Of course he talks like a guy who thinks he’s much better looking than he actually is.

  You know what the fuck I’m talking about.

  And okay, it’s not so much a resting dick face as much of an all the time dick face. But I digress.

  “Hi.” Green’s polite about his idiotic attempt to mark his territory. Not un-happy to see him, exactly, but not ecstatic he just assaulted her fucking face, either.

  Ass.

  Funny, I pegged her for more of the back-against-a-wall sort of woman. This guy looks like he’d much prefer cowgirl style so he can watch her tits bounce.

  Personally, I think I’d like to feel them up close and personal like. Against me. With the heat and the passion and the want and the…

  What the fuck am I even thinking?

  All beside the goddamn point.

  She’s forgotten I’m even standing here until I clear my throat and eyeball the douchebag.

  “Oh.” She laughs. “Stiles. This is─”

  “Don’t care.” When I’m sure he gets my meaning, I turn my attention back to Green. “You were saying?”

  It takes her a minute to figure out what I’m getting at, then she remembers, but apparently doesn’t want to get into to it with the boy thing around. So she slips me a sinister, quirky grin and ropes her hand through douchebag’s arm.

  “Some other time, Stiles. We’ve gotta go.” She turns and pulls him along, but his eyes stay on me like Peanut Butter on toast, trying to figure out who in the hell I am exactly.

  Fuck you. That’s who I am, asshole.

  As they scuttle off together, into the sun, I have to admit, I’m slightly impressed with the way Green ended it just now ’cause, you know, heels.

  More than that, though, I’m kinda baffled.

  Green has a boyfriend? Who knew?

  Then again, maybe it’s not a boyfriend. Maybe it’s just a guy she fucks every once in a while to relieve the tension of the job. Though, she doesn’t strike me as the type for flings.

  Maybe a long term Dom/sub relationship.

  She’s definitely the Dom.

  I’m picturing a more intense version of Trinity from The Matrix when a shiver flies up my spine.

  I don’t wanna think about why that bothers me, so I shake off the twisted fuckery inside my head and wait a minute before leaving. Lilah may be hiding somewhere, waiting to jump me at her earliest convenience. Despite the fact that I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’d never really do anything that might get her or myself killed, on purpose, I like to remind myself that those are just about everyone’s famous last words.

  X X X

  Back in the safety of my car, I lock the doors and check my messages. It shouldn’t surprise me that the first one is from my mom, considering I never responded to her text last night.

  Dammit.

  I can always blame my inconsideration on the job I was dealing with at the time and how late I got in, but it won’t matter. You never leave your mom hanging. Ever.

  “Jackson, dear, it’s your mother calling.”

  Her messages pretty much start out the same way every time. How, having lived in Redemption her whole life, she manages to sound like a true Southerner, is beyond me.

  “I just wanted to remind you that your father’s birthday is this weekend.”

  And here I thought my day could only get better.

  Air leaves me in a defeated sigh.

  “Shit.”

  I completely forgot. Not that it matters; I won’t be buying him a present or anything. My dad and I, well, let’s just say, he’s kind of an ass. Mostly because he’s what a lot of people would call a functioning alcoholic.

  I wouldn’t say he’s drunk every day. Only when he’s got responsibilities that are weighing him down, or when the holidays roll around, or when I’m near him, or when he’s awake.

  So, yeah, I guess every day.

  He’s not just any old drunk, though. He’s a mean drunk.

  He’s also a retired cop, which is why Nick is a cop, and why I was supposed to be a cop.

  Dad was always kind of a hardass, but back in the day, he was a pretty decent guy. He earned a name for himself in Redemption by putting away almost fifty-five percent of the street thugs all on his own. He was awarded the Redemption Medal of Honor a couple times. Had his very own task force. Even landed himself in the company of the mayor on more than one occasion.

  That was before his descent into what I like to refer to as being a complete dicktwat. Not that I wasn’t partially to blame for that, but still.

  I’ve spent a lot of time since moving out of my parents’ place avoiding him. Mom makes that difficult at times.

  Typically, I’m a pro at making sure I have plans that are out of town for this very occasion. This year, my mind has been preoccupied.

  “We’re having a dinner on Saturday,” she says, then she hesitates. And, there it is, my friends. Even via voice mail, she knows how to dish out the guilt trips with long pauses.

  Don’t get me wrong. My mother is a saint. I love her to death. But damn, she can lay it on thick.

  Then she adds the humdinger. The double whammy. The side-swiper, if you will.

  “Nick is driving over. He said he could pick you up.”

  Fuuuuuuuuuuck me.

  I shake my head and smile, in awe of the way she knows exactly how to manipulate me, even in adulthood.

  I check my calendar. I have a few days to come up with an excuse. One, I’m positive won’t be working at this point, is leaving town. She knows I’m here. If I go now, it’ll be obvious.

  “So, I’ll see you then, honey,” she says with that flippant, motherly, I won’t bother waiting for you to call back to confirm because you know better than to cross me tone.

  She ends the message, and I let my head fall back against the headrest.

  At least I don’t have to bring my own booze.

  GUTTERAL INSTINCTS ARE A BITCH

  THERE ARE, at any given time, two types of bullshit that tend to go down in my world. The first kind can be extinguished with a quick trip to the local bar. That’s, generally speaking, bullshit of the family kind. Then there’s the type that takes a little more energy to snuff out.

  Client bullshit.

  One of my cases gets stolen by some half-assed newbie P.I. who thinks he’s slick. Maybe a payment I’m due gets “lost in the mail.” Or my favorite: I get one hell of a screwed-up case that not even the Redemption P.D. wants to handle.

  That’s when I go to my safe place.

  My Zen.

  My office.

  The fourteen-by-fourteen foot space, located on the outskirts of downtown Redemption, is slightly overpriced, sure, but it’s where my mind works best.

  There’s nothing special about the place other than the
fact that it’s far, far away from where my family lives. Therefore, they don’t tend to swing by unannounced. Much.

  It’s still got white walls because I don’t know how to pick a color to save my fucking life. The world’s single worst coffee maker ever created completes the decor, along with your basic couch that sits across from my desk, a bathroom for obvious reasons, and, most importantly, a twenty-inch Sony to keep up with the news and maybe watch a little something called “none of your fucking business.” I consider the bulletproof windows and soundproofing I had installed to be bonus features.

  Your standard, run of the mill, private eye office.

  Okay, substandard. Semantics.

  How much room do you need to fax contracts, take phone calls, and collect payments, anyway? Sure, there’s the occasional face-to-face meeting with certain clientele, but honestly, most of the cases I take these days can be squared away via text, email, or Facebook.

  Actually, scratch that last thing; I quit social media when catfishing and multiple personalities became the everyday norm.

  I’ve got enough problems keeping track of who’s who in the real world; I don’t need to add virtual psychos to my list of issues. Besides, one less place for the man to keep his watchful eye on yours truly; ya know what I mean?

  Once I’m inside, I set the remains of my burger and fries down onto the desk, turn on the television, and head for the stack of bills I’ve been avoiding for about a week. I pull out the twelve thousand I still have tucked away in my jacket and the envelope that’s with it and toss them onto my desk. As I rummage through the top drawer to find a deposit slip, I grab the remote.

  Ah. I knew I had one somewhere.

  I start to fill the slip out, then my fucking pen runs out of ink. Story of my life, people.

  Unable to find another working goddamn writing utensil, I flip channels on the TV until I find the news.

  It’s not odd to me so much when Donnie Leary’s face pops up on the screen. I do find it off-putting that the old photo of him is accompanied by the solemn expression of a reporter saying something I can’t hear.

  What’d you do now, kid? Frustration kicks in because not only did he almost have me convinced he was one of the good guys, but now I might have to go track his ass down again.