Wrong Chance

by E. L. Myrieckes

  Leon paced the room like an aggressive caged animal. “I told you to get rid of it. Every time I turn around, you do something to make me hit you.” He kicked her in the belly as he passed her.

  “Oh God,” Jazz cried out. “My baby. You’re hurting my baby.”

  “Get up so I can knock your ugly ass down again.” Then: “Told your ass to get rid of it.”

  Jazz hugged herself tighter.

  “I said get up, dammit!” He snatched her to her feet by her hair, then backhanded her to the floor again.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, spitting blood. “I’m sorry, Leon.”

  He kicked her and the baby again. “You know what? I’m gonna show you I ain’t to be fucked with.” He dragged her from their bedroom, dirtying her sparkling white jeans. He shoved her through the house and into their indoor garage. “Told you to stay off the phone. Think I wouldn’t see the long-distance charges? I brought you here to keep you away from the dregs of your family. Them people don’t love you. Only I do.” He pushed her into the front seat of his brand-new 2005 Mercedes-Benz CLS550—courtesy of her latest royalty check—and slammed the door.

  Jazz watched through the windshield as he ranted and raved, pacing. He disappeared from her line of vision. She was in too much pain to move, too afraid of his fists to try something daring to save her and the baby. She felt something warm and sticky between her legs. She glanced down and saw her crotch spotted burgundy.

  The trunk slammed closed; Jazz flinched. Leon slid into the driver’s seat, hit the automatic garage door opener, and backed out into the night. The clock on the dashboard read 3:22 a.m. Jazz wondered where he was taking her.

  “I’m having a miscarriage. Take me to the hospital. Please, Leon. Please help me save my baby.”

  He pound on the steering wheel. “No one helped me save Gilchrist tonight when that bitch mashed his head in. No, honey, you don’t need a hospital where you’re going.” He cut a hateful set of eyes on her.

  It only took twenty-two minutes from the time they left home before they pulled onto a dirt road that winded two miles into an unkempt wooded section of Count Basie Park in Red Bank, New Jersey.

  Leon threw the car in Drive. “Get out of my car.”

  When her swollen eyes adjusted to the darkness, she took in her surroundings. A dense knot of oak trees in the middle of…nowhere. “You’re gonna kill me,” she said in spite of a busted lip.

  He reached across her lap, opened the door, and shoved her to the dirt road. “I said get the fuck out.” Before he climbed out, he took his throwaway .32 caliber pistol from beneath the seat. He then removed a spade shovel from the trunk and threw it at Jazz’s feet.

  The shovel and its implication horrified Jazz.

  He put the gun to her head. “Pick it up.”

  Through the pain and fear she did as she was told. By gunpoint he forced her deep into the woods to a clear patch of earth.

  “Tonight we end this,” he said with no feeling or inflection. “Dig.”

  The thought of her digging her own grave made Jazz give up. “I can’t do this.” She threw the shovel down as the October chill cooled the sticky fluid between her legs. “You want me dead, then kill me, Leon. Just do it. Dammit, do—”

  He fired a bullet that whizzed by her head and left her ears ringing. “Honey, I’m serious. I advise you to pick the shovel up and dig without further procrastination.”

  She pushed the shovel into the earth and pulled out a rich chunk of soil like she used to do while helping her mother plant a bell pepper and tomato garden on a stretch of inherited land on the countryside of Maryland.

  “Whatever I did to you, I won’t ever do it again. Just tell me, Leon, and take me to a hospital.”

  “Don’t stop digging until it’s deep enough,” Leon said. “I don’t want the black bears and coons to smell you rotting and dig you up.”

  “I feel my baby dying, Leon. I swear I won’t call my mother again. I swear.” She pulled out another chunk of earth. “Take me to a hospital, please.”

  “Shut up whining and dig, you bitch.”

  “Eric will look for me.”

  “And I’ll bring him out here and bury him beside you.” Then: “You think I don’t know your agent wants to fuck you?”

  It took Jazz the better part of two hours to dig a grave in her condition suitable to Leon’s liking. She stood in the hole, shivering, gazing up at him through tear-filled eyes.

  “Hand me the shovel.”

  She was in too much pain and too exhausted to do anything other than comply.

  “Now lay down.”

  She didn’t budge.

  Leon said, “I’ll hurt your mother and let you carry that knowledge into the next life.”

  With her back against the cold earth and a dead baby in her belly, Jazz cried and screamed, “Kill me. Just kill—”

  He threw a shovelful of dirt on her face. “If I ever have to speak to you again about anything, mark my words, this is where I’ll leave your black ass.”

  SEVENTY

  Impound lot. Now Hakeem worried that Yancee’s Camaro wouldn’t turn up any evidence that would identify the unsub or put them any closer to nailing the bastard.

  He and Aspen watched as criminalist—with emphasized caution—loaded the Camaro onto a flatbed truck. Five days into the investigation and nothing made sense. None of the facts matched. The nation’s elite profilers pegged the murders on a white male. Scratch witnessed Yancee with a stunning female of undetermined race a few hours before the time of death. “Maybe she was white or mixed or a fair-skinned sista,” as Scratch had described her. DNA evidence collected from the crime scene belonged to an unidentified African American male.

  “What if we’re dealing with a serial killing team?” Hakeem said as a dumpy man with aggravated acne hustled toward them. “Three of ’em.”

  “That’ll be one for the history books.” She wiped traces of their breakfast from his mouth with a thumb. Their eyes locked. Their lips dangerously close. Hakeem held his breath.

  “Here you go,” Dumpy said, handing Aspen an impound invoice. “Yup, came in Saturday, April the twenty-third at twelve seventeen in the morning.” Sweat dripped from his forehead; his breathing labored.

  Hakeem and Aspen eyed each other, both understanding that they were at the scene of the crime while Yancee’s car was being towed.

  Aspen scanned the paperwork. “Has anyone touched the car or removed anything from it?”

  Dumpy shrugged. “Sorry, Detective, that I can’t say.”

  Hakeem knew what that meant: Dumpy was about to get a full dose of Aspen Skye. Poor Dumpy, Hakeem thought.

  Aspen’s eyes glazed over; her jawbone throbbed. She looked at Dumpy as if he were incompetent, retarded, or both. “So what in the hell do you have supervisor stitched on your shirt for? Point us in the damn direction of someone who can say.”

  “What I meant—”

  “Exactly what the hell did you mean?” She tapped out a Newport as Hakeem looked on, wondering what was in her that made her go from zero to one hundred at the slightest irritation.

  Dumpy said, “My employees haven’t removed or touched the car after it was hauled in. There’s a drug rehabilitation center and methadone clinic at the end of the block. We get vandalized weekly. Addicts climb my fence at night and steal car radios, TVs, and anything else they can carry outta here to get a fix.”

  • • •

  Inside the police garage, the crime scene techs busied themselves gutting Yancee’s Camaro and collecting potential evidence. Tony Adams excused himself from the others and went over to Hakeem and Aspen.

  “Detectives,” he said.

  “Tony.” Hakeem nodded.

  In lieu of a greeting, Aspen said, “What you got?”

  Tony glanced back at the car as the front seats were being removed. “Lifted seventy-two sets of latent that were made by five different people. Two sets were made by children. Got hits on another two sets as soon a
s we fed them to AIFIS.”

  Aspen’s heart started pounding. “That’s great. Who, Tony?”

  “Of course one combination of prints belongs to Yancee Taylor. The other combination are—”

  “Scratch’s,” Hakeem said, “if he told the whole truth.”

  Tony nodded.

  “What about the fifth person?” Aspen said.

  “Nothing in the database.” Tony pulled out a plastic evidence bag and held it up. “We also found this stuck to the dashboard.”

  Inside the bag was a yellow Post-It note. Written in blue ink were the words C.F. Wood Chips, 4:30, Thursday.

  “Does this mean anything to either of you?”

  Hakeem said nothing.

  “Dammit, I think it just might.” Aspen snapped a picture of the note with her phone. “I could kiss you right now, Tony.”

  He blushed.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  They faced each other in the square of the kitchen like two prizefighters with their titles on the line.

  Buank. Buank. Buank. Buank.

  “I swear to God.” Jazz pulled her hair into a ponytail and propped the sunglasses on her head. “I swear if you bounce that ball one more time—ever—in my house, I’ll leave you here and never come back.” She wore a jean skirt that showed off her long legs and a fashionable pair of sandals that highlighted her pretty toes. The tantalizing cover to her latest novel and the URL of her web site was printed on the front of her dainty T-shirt.

  Fear flashed in Jaden’s eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

  Jazz saw it as plain as day. “So that’s it, huh?” Translation: I got you all figured out. “You’re scared to be alone.”

  He palmed the ball, feigning a dribble, testing her resolve.

  She picked up her keys, eager to make good on her promise. “Try me. I dare you. You’re hateful, mean, and rude as hell with your smart-ass mouth. I would love to leave you.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Bounce the ball and find out.”

  He pretended he would bounce it.

  “Jaden, I’m so sick of you. Stop faking and do it so I can turn my back on you.”

  “You want to leave me for real?”

  “I’m more than ready to go. You pushed and pushed me away. Now give me the reason I need to seal the deal.” She set her chin. “My sanity is too precious to keep allowing you to put me through hell because you won’t accept my apology.”

  “You can’t leave me.”

  With a hand on her cocked hip, she said, “And why the hell not?”

  “ ’Cause.”

  “Because what, Jaden?”

  “ ’Cause you’re more afraid of abandonment than I am. I got your number.” Buank. Buank. Buank. Buank.

  “Good riddance.” Jazz’s long, confident strides quickly carried her through the house.

  “Don’t leave me,” Jaden said. “Take me with you.”

  She kept going straight toward the front door without so much as a backward glance.

  “Okay, okay, okay, I’m sorry. Please don’t leave.”

  “Should’ve thought about that before you disrespected me and did exactly what I asked you not to do.”

  “I won’t do it again.”

  “Too damn late, Jaden. I’m gone.” She snatched the door open and Leon was coming up the walkway.

  Now she was in for a real fight.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  A gasp punctuated her surprise and got caught in her throat. Only her eyes blinked because it was an involuntary action. Everything else was too damn scared to move. She felt pure terror burrow deep into her heart.

  He said, “Need to talk to you.” He was sickly-looking and way too skinny. He’d lost at least thirty pounds since they sat at a conference table with their lawyers and signed divorce papers.

  The sound of his baritone voice thawed her. She clicked the lock on the security screen door between them in a hurry.

  “You can’t leave me like this,” Jaden said.

  Over a shoulder, she said, “Shut up. Just shut up.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Leon stepped closer to the screen door, trying to see around her. His jaundice-colored eyes were sunken and distant.

  “I know you didn’t violate the restraining order to mind my business. What do you want?” Without permission, her heart tried to stab its way through her chest. In their twelve-year history, she never dared speak to him with such contempt. The thought of it now turned her into a nervous ball of energy.

  “You can look at me.” His once beefy shoulders slumped forward. Defeated.

  Until Leon said that, Jazz had no idea her gaze was downcast. The practice was beat into her so thoroughly, it became a natural reflex in Leon’s presence—in any assertive man’s presence. And now that he’d given her permission to look at him, she still couldn’t find the power to lift her gaze.

  “Do it,” Jaden said. “Now’s the time to get back everything he stole from you. Look him in his eyes.”

  She whispered, “Please be quiet.” Then she eased the sunglasses onto her face, killing all possibilities of a personal connection.

  “Uh,” Leon said, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I know that don’t make my insecurities excusable or fix things, but I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve my bull.”

  “Lift your head,” Jaden said.

  “You came here to say you’re sorry for destroying everything good within me after all these years?”

  “Yeah,” Leon nodded. “And I risked you putting me in jail to do it.” He blinked a tear loose. “I’m sorry, Jazz.”

  “Well, you said it. I’m shutting my door now.”

  “Wait, please,” Leon said. “Hear me out.”

  “Look him in the face and say it.”

  Again she glanced over her shoulder at Jaden and whispered, “Say what?” Her expression softened toward him.

  “Get mad and say what you need to say. Let it out.” He spun the ball on his finger.

  “Who are you talking to? Who’s in there with you?”

  Her head snapped back toward Leon. “None of your fucking business.” That felt great…empowering.

  Leon shrugged. “I deserve that.”

  “You’re damn right you do.”

  “That’s it,” Jaden said, “get mad. Take a stance and reclaim everything he took.”

  She raised her head a smidgen, building confidence inch by inch. Anger intoxicating her.

  “Do it,” Jaden said. “What are you waiting for? Tell him.”

  “I was terrible to you.” Leon scratched his beard stubble. “Can you ever find it in your heart to forgive me?”

  “Forgive you? I hate you. You kicked my baby out my stomach.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Jaden said. “Raise some hell.”

  “You beat me, you bastard, because I love my family. I’ll never forgive you.” Cinder block by cinder block, Jazz built a resistance to Leon, using hate and anger for mortar. She held her head high and proud. “You’re a coward. A fucking poor excuse for a human being.”

  Jaden said, “Give it to him.”

  “Jazz, you don’t know how bad I wish I could take it all back or how I wish I could’ve been a different man for you the day you walked into our dorm room.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and lowered his own gaze. “I swear I wish these things.”

  “And I wish you die a thousand painful deaths. But we don’t always get what we want, do we?”

  “Knew you had it in you,” Jaden said.

  “Shut the hell up!”

  Leon looked up. “Who—”

  “What, Leon? What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  She burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. “I’m calling the cops.”

  Buank. Buank—

  She spun on Jaden. “That fucking ball better bounce outdoors from this day forward or you will find yourself by yourself. Do I make myself clear?”
>
  Jaden nodded, his expression saturated in shock. “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And that’s the way you better speak to me from now on.” Jazz faced Leon again and couldn’t contain herself. She burst into laughter. “You’re too funny.”

  SEVENTY-THREE

  Only a fifth of rum could momentarily stop Leon from feeling like a piece of shit. It had taken him two days to get over his suicidal contemplations and to choke up the nerve to step onto Jazz’s porch.

  “You can call the police if you want,” he said. “But I’m serious.”

  Jazz was amused. Each time she tried to stop herself from laughing, she laughed harder. Laughed so hard he was sure tears clouded her vision.

  He said, “It’s Yancee’s and your cousin’s murder that has me worried about you.”

  That silenced her.

  “What are the odds of both of them randomly being killed by the Hieroglyphic Hacker? There isn’t that much coincidence in the world.” He could tell that the conversation piqued her interest. Obviously she’d engaged similar thoughts. Novelists’ minds clicked like that. Analytical. But he also knew she wasn’t going to budge and be sociable. Not after all the hell he put her through.

  She said, “I made funeral arrangements for Anderson.”

  “Got an anonymous call the other day from somebody telling me I would die next. What do you make of that?”

  It seemed to Leon as if a pensive calm came over her. After two solid minutes of quiet, Jazz said, “Explains your conscience all of a sudden, whether it’s real or fake. If that’s all it took, I would’ve had someone send you a death threat years ago.”

  “Jazz, I’m talking about people’s lives. Has anyone heard from Chance?”

  Jazz’s brow raised above the frame of her sunglasses. “Why are you asking about him?”