“You hold on and don’t talk to no damn cops. Mama’s coming for a little visit.”
I hear a final hacking cough and then silence. She’s hung up. Was I stupid enough to imagine she’d let me be right just once? She’s coming to visit. Well—hellfire. Isn’t that sweet? I’m being kicked out of my apartment, and I don’t have a place for my mom to stay. All this time I’ve judged her for living in her ratty trailer in Goshen. At least, it’s paid for. At least, it’s home. I can run there if I gotta, and it’s lookin’ like I might.
But worrying about my mom visiting, and having no place to put her up since I’m being evicted, is the least of my problems.
“You need to leave now,”Officer Barbie says. “This is a crime scene.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Officer Barbie and I are working our stand-off in my bedroom. Actually, I’m doing all the work. She looks pretty comfortable with her hand tucked against the ominous looking snap on her black leather hip holster.
“Last time I looked this was my place,”I say, expecting her to say,“You’re under arrest.”
“What’s that?”she asks instead, glancing toward the floor.
I follow her gaze. “Looks like a man’s windbreaker.”
It’s navy blue and got“Newport Police”across the back in huge white letters. Standard cop issue, it’s crumpled on the floor by my bed, where Aidan left it last night. After we finished in the hallway, we made our way in here, started over, and then finally crashed on my bed. Officer Barbie has no way of knowing it’s Aidan’s windbreaker, but since she’s forcing me to leave my apartment, I decide to give her something to remember me by.
“Detective Hawks must have forgotten to put it back on last night,”I say, kicking it toward her. “He was in a bit of a hurry. Why don’t you return it to him with my compliments?”
Her pink lips work, but nothing comes out. She’s one of those blondes whose creamy skin can hide a blush, but not her livid red scowl. There’s murderin her glare. She’s got it bad for Aidan, I can tell, so our developing windbreaker squabble is bound to be pissing her off good.
“It will be my pleasure,”she says, leaning down and grabbing the windbreaker.
When she straightens, I’m expecting her to throw it over my head and smother me with it. A nasty smile tightens her lips. I shoot her one right back.
“It’s already been mypleasure,”I snark,“so help yourself to him.”
Pushing past her, I grab my backpack from the floor in the entry hall and prepare to bolt.
“Halt!”she barks and marches from my bedroom. “Do you know how that girl’s shoulder got put in your fridge?”
There’s a girls shoulder in my fridge?
Chills raking my spine like claws, I drop my backpack and turn back to her, and then I make the mistake no self-respecting Colby would make: I forget Berta’s advice about never talking to cops.
“What . . . girl’s shoulder?”I squeak, stunned and reeling.
“You mean you haven’t peeked in your freezer lately?”she asks, her voice dripping sarcasm. She either thinks I’m the stupid scum she’s used to dealing with, or she hates me because I’ve slept with Aidan, or both. But she’s a LEO, and she’s just handed me a problem I’d never anticipated, one I can’t wiggle out of. I’ve got no choice but to cooperate.
“I-I looked in my freezer last night. All I saw was mint chocolate-chip ice cream.”
“Which you shared with your brother, Robin?”
“Well, no,”I stutter, taken off guard. “I didn’t. He wasn’t here, so Stoke Farrel and I ate it—”
I shut my mouth. I’ve just given her ammo to burn Robin. She now knows he wasn’t here, so if I’m his alibi, I just blew it. She also knows Stoke washere, so I’ve given Stoke and myself an alibi, while destroying Robin’s.
I watch her face. She looks skeptical, like she thinks I’m Ted Bundy’s evil twin sister. And then slowly awareness dawns. “Oh my God,”I whisper, my throat dry.
The black plastic bag . . . Stoke showed me the Graeter’s ice cream. I didn’t bother opening it. I just assumed it was something Stoke stashed in my freezer, or maybe something Robin left. I shake my head, unbelieving, my gut rocketing to my ankles. Truth is, I don’t know how that garbage bag got in my freezer.
“You’re . . . sayin’ there was a girl’s shoulder in that bag?”
“Come on. Y’all gotta be shittin’ me. Like you don’t know?”
Oh. My. God.
My knees buckling, I lean against the door. No wonder the cops are crawling like ants all over my place.
Did Robin put that shoulder in there?
I shake my head, unwilling to believe it. How can my brother be involved in this? He’s not even been here. “H-how did you find out it’s in there?”I say, trembling. “Who told you?”
“We got a call-in, an anonymous tip,”she says, gloating. “So how did it get in there?”
Someone called in a tip?
I try piecing things together in my addled brain. For God’s sake, I’m a criminology major, so why can’t I deal with the evidence? I shake my head, trying to clear my brain. Who, besides Robin, would know to call in a tip about that bag in my freezer?
Robin couldn’t be involved. He just couldn’t. But Officer Barbie’s staring hard, like she’s trying to will me into spilling my guts, and I’ve already destroyed my brother’s alibi. Too late, I can hear Berta Colby’s warning.
Don’t say a word to any cops. Don’t say one damn word. It can be used against Robin.
“I have no idea how it got in there,”I say. Done cooperating, I cross my arms. “If you think I put it in there, arrest me.”
“Don’t worry, if we think you’re involved, we’ll find you.”
I hate the way she emphasizes we, this walking female billboard for Playboy. She’s got everything. Looks. Boobs. A great job. Did I say boobs? Oh, yeah, and she oozes self confidence. Plus she’s got access to Aidan, which feels unfair: the next chance I’ll get to see him is at Robin’s arraignment for murder.
“Here, you’re going to need this.” She socks my backpack into my arms, shoving it hard against my chest. “Now . . . get out,”she orders,“before I charge you with obstructing official business.”
I shrug her hand off my shoulder and race back into my bedroom, Officer Barbie on my heels. She can run, but I’m doing one more thing here, even if means getting shot.
“Stop!”
When I hear her yell, I brake to a full stop.
“Hands up,”she says. Gun drawn, she’s on her phone calling for backup.
“Hey, look, I’m not gonna resist—”
“Put your fucking hands up!”
“Alright.” I can’t help Robin if I’m in jail. Hands shooting above my head, I hear loud voices, men yelling, footsteps running down the hallway outside my apartment.
“If you don’t leave,”she says,“I’m going to—”
“What? Shoot me for taking a pair of ballet slippers? How would you explain that to Detective Hawks?
“I’m leaving,”I say, one hand raised above my head, the other holding my backpack. “But I need clothes for work,”I add, deferential, since she’s got that stubby-nosed gun pointed at me. “Do you mind if I get some things from my dresser?”
“Don’t do anything foolish,”she says, like I’m a complete idiot. “Any sudden movement from you, and I’ll shoot.”
“This is all I need,”I say, stuffing jeans and underwear into my backpack, and then grabbing my ballet slippers, hanging by their ribbons from the mirror.
“Time’s up,”she snorts, watching me pack.
I bet she’s wondering why I’m not packing a suitcase filled with lipstick or some such crap, the way she would, instead of my raggedy ballet slippers.
“I’ll be sure to give Detective Hawks your message,”she says, getting in a final dig. “Don’t go far. We’ll want to get your statement.”
“Yeah,”I say,“he enjoys sweating me down.” I sm
ile, watching her burn. “He’ll also want to talk about that shoulder in my freezer,”I add. “He’s a nibbler, too, you know.”
Joking aside, I think about Angie and whoever’s shoulder’s in my fridge. At some point, I’m going to have to talk to Aidan about what I know, what I suspect about my brother. None of this has made any sense to me, until now. I screwed up by talking to Officer Barbie, destroying Robin’s alibi, but she gave me something in exchange just now, something I needed to know.
“Whatever you say, officer,”I say, shoving past her.
At my apartment door, I turn and take a last sad look. It’s not much, but this is home. Or it was. When Robin disappeared on Monday, things started falling apart and haven’t stopped. “When will I be able to return?”
I don’t like her, but there’s no denying she’s pretty. She’s super model tall, and her bones form an elegant scaffold for her Heidi Klum face. Now, who’s jealous, Alaina? Aidan couldn’t admire my“dainty ladies”—his pet term for them—enough. “They’re beautiful,”he’d kept telling me, at least when he wasn’t worshiping them with kisses.
I’ve never seen breasts as beautiful as yours. They’re so lovely, so—
Junk. His words were all hookup junk. Bullshit.
Officer Barbie shoots me a vicious smile. Pretty women know when they’re being appraised by competitors, and she’s got every reason to hate me. I just gave her the biggest one of all, taunting her about sleeping with Aidan. I jealously figure she has, too.
“How should I know when you can come back to this . . . dump,”she sneers.
What would she say if she saw my mom’s trailer? What would Aidan say? The thought makes me cringe.
“This is a crime scene,”she repeats, running her scathing gaze up and down my body. “And by the way, where someone like youdecides to go hang out isn’t my problem.”
Someone like me? “Right, it isn’t your problem. It’s mine, and I’m going to fix it. Are you arresting me?”
“I wish to hell I could,”she says.
“Then fuck you,”I say, leaving her standing in the entry hall of my apartment.
Someone like you.
She’s not up to the job of handling someone like—me.
Earlier I might’ve tried slicing her pretty face with my shiv, but I’ve grown in ways I never could’ve imagined. I’ve found—and lost—the one person who could’ve made me bend my mom’s unbreakable rule about sleeping with cops. I’ve also forgiven my mom for behavior she really can’t help. Even better, I’ve stopped blaming her for my own failings. Yes, I feel emotionally raw, but I also feel energized with a new sense of power. It’s weird. Exhilarating.
Cutting down the hallway, careful to avoid the cops, I run up the basement steps to the first floor landing inside my apartment building. The cops who put it there are gone, but the yellow and black tape identifying the building’s entire back entry as a crime scene stretches from banisters on each side of the steps.
I bust through the tape, leaving it, and whatever hang-ups I had about being Alaina Colby, the Goshen Gimp, my mom’s“Crip,”hanging in ribbons behind me.
This is the new Alaina Colby, who owns the world. I’m ready for any challenge.
Outside, I sneak to my building’s front, where I stop and do a quick scan. Cops roam the perimeter. They’re wearing white latex gloves and crawling all over the Coca-Cola truck. One of them jumps out of its cab and hands off something to another. My breath catching, I watch one of them kneel and tag Robin’s overnight bag.
Why didn’t I look in that Coke truck? How’d Robin’s overnight bag get in there?
I stare, my heart pounding. For several arrested heartbeats, I fight an impulse to zoom past the kneeling cop and grab the bag and run with it, but that would only make matters worse, maybe even get me shot.
Okay, Alaina, let’s come up with a plan to help Robin.
And out of desperation, I do. It’s not going to be easy carrying out my plan. As my mom said, Robin’s in a world of crap, but nothing in my life’s been easy, except trusting Aidan Hawk’s and falling like a silly fool into his arms.
Sneaking away from the cops, I sprint for the privet hedge separating my apartment building from the one next door. Laughing at myself, at how stupid I’ve been to ignore my mom’s advice, I crawl through.
Yep. I fell for Detective Hawks’ line of bull. No one to blame but myself. I shoulda listened to my mom. No sleepin’ with LEOs. Aidan is my enemy, my brother’s enemy, but no matter what Detective Aidan Hawks thinks he knows about Robin, I know better. My brother is no serial killer.
I’m flying solo from now on.
With my heart set on proving Aidan Hawks and his LEO cronies wrong, I cut across the parking lot and hit the sidewalk a few yards down the street from my apartment building.
Chapter 40
Hiking down the sidewalk, I watch cars glide past. Like pre-dawn shadows, they skulk past me, metallic deer lost in their city forest of concrete, fog and the city’s dim light. I hunker inside my hoodie, hoping none of the cars belong to cops, or to him.
Is it Aidan? Has he come looking for me?
A passing cruiser makes me jumpy, but I relax, watching it pass, heading toward my apartment building. Putting distance between me and Aidan Hawks, I watch lights coming on in businesses lining Clifton’s sidewalks. Their muted glow shines from shop windows, poking holes in the foggy dawn. Careful to avoid the light they cast, I hug the shadows.
Farther down the street, I spy a man shuffling around inside the Clifton donut shop. I recognize Jimmy Mineheart, one of the many homeless the bakery shop’s owner feeds. Any other day, I’d stop in and talk to Jimmy and Cal, the shop’s owner, but this morning, I forego my sugar fix and hurry past.
Wishing I’d copped Aidan’s windbreaker, instead of giving it to Officer Barbie, I recall with heartbreaking clarity how Aidan had adored my now shivering body. “It’s a temple. I can tell you care for it.”
Well, no. Actually, I treat it like shit.
I swore off ice cream and donuts, anything with sugar, plus pizza, the minute he said it. Now I’ve sworn off him.
The gas station on the corner looks open, so I run inside and buy a large black coffee, and then hurry back out to the sidewalk. Trying to look inconspicuous, I walk slowly toward campus, unable to stop thinking about Aidan, or the black plastic garbage bag in my freezer.
Whose shoulder is it? What’s the girl’s name?
When Officer Barbie first told me about the girl’s shoulder, I was too stunned to think. Why’d she tell me? To be mean, I guess. Walking and swigging gas station coffee, I kick around some concerns. I’d rather wear Stoke’s floods than talk to him, but I’m going to have to talk to Aidan soon. The dead girls, all of them—and Robin—deserve that much from me, and Officer Barbie’s after my statement, so I’m gonna have to talk.
I have my own ideas about who murdered Ang. And about who might have murdered the dead girl whose shoulder rests in my fridge. I think about the Twizzler pack I grabbed and stuffed in my backpack. It’s evidence. Probably got DNA on it. But there’s the issue of chain-of-custody. Chain of custody is like a kid whose every minute at a daycare center must be accounted for by an authorized employee. It’s the same with evidence. The chain of custody must be preserved. The name of every cop who handles it must be logged—and the reason why. Since I took the Twizzler pack, it’s still evidence, but it’s not admissible in court. I know this from my criminology class. Same deal with the Mountain Dew can I grabbed from the steps where Stoke threw it.
But while it’s not admissible, since no chain of custody has been preserved, I can still use it to catch a murderer.
When I’ve done all the thinking I can do, I polish my plan, and then I call Stoke.
“Stoke, hey, it’s me.”
I tell him everything that just happened, except about Aidan and me. It would please Stoke too much to hear Aidan used me to get info on Robin. “I need a place to stay until the cops get don
e collecting evidence from my apartment,”I say, keeping my fingers crossed.
“Yeah, sure,”he says. “Come over.”
I was expecting him to resist, to not let me into his apartment, like before, but he’s okay with it now. So what’s changed?
I can guess, and it’s not good. In fact, it’s horrifying, and I feel even more scared about what I’m planning. But I have zero choice. I’ve got to save my brother.
“You can stay here,”Stoke says.
“You’ve cleaned your apartment?” I joke, hoping I sound okay, and then I swallow coffee to calm myself. “You sure you won’t be embarrassed?”
Or that you won’t try again to rape me on your stairwell?
“I’ve cleaned it up. It’s spotless, Blaze. No blood, no bodies,”he jokes. “Not a smidgen of trace evidence.”
“Heh-heh,”I say, fighting cold chills. He’s lying. I don’t know Stoke Farrel, a fact he drove home when he mauled me on his stairwell to prevent me from going inside his apartment. He’s definitely hiding something.
“Come over any time, Blaze,”he says. “I’ll always make room for you.”
“Thanks,”I say, fighting back another cold chill. “But I have one more favor to ask.”
“Yeah, sure. Anything.”
I fight to sound like I’m teasing. “You know how I love to dance?”
“Yeah?” Stoke’s voice grows husky, overly intrigued—lurid. Other than Robin and Angie, I’ve only told Stoke about my foot, about being born a cripple. Since the moment I confided, he’s gone out of his way to be my friend. Now I know the reason why, and I want to scream,“You’re a fucking sicko psychopath with a foot fetish, and I’m coming for you.”
But I force myself to sound sweet. “You know how the only person who cares what happens to me is—you?”
I swallow. This is tougher than baring my chest in Omar’s and dancing topless for guys like Tater McCloskey. I’ve a second major in dance, not theatre, so my acting sucks. Even without the change in tone in Stoke’s voice, I feel violated. I hear his interest pick up, his usually shrill voice go baritone, guttural with lust.
“I don’t have anyone to help me make my jump-the-line video,”I continue, working to sound vulnerable. “Can you pick up some video equipment from school and bring it to your apartment so we can use it later tonight?” When he doesn’t say anything, I add,“The campus communication center opens at nine. You can pick up the equipment there.”
Jump The Line (Toein' The Line Book 1) Page 27