Bile flooded Genevieve’s esophagus. She was going to throw up. His words were horrible enough. Terrifying. Heartbreaking. Incomprehensible. Even more unsettling was that Edger Botella Sanchez’s hands were free.
In all the years she’d worked around violent offenders, only once had a guy slipped his cuffs, and he’d been a child really. At seventeen years old, the boy had looked twelve with long, gangly limbs and sunken cheeks. A genetic defect had made it extremely difficult for his body to absorb nutrients, but it hadn’t kept him from bludgeoning his healthy little brother to death. She’d been asked to sit in on the interview by an associate, looking for weaknesses in their case against the boy, when he pulled one of his hands from a cuff. The kid had grabbed a pen from the table and attacked her co-worker. He’d stabbed the man twice before she, the opposing counsel, and a corrections officer were able to subdue him. Even now, she felt the strength in those thin arms and the rage they channeled.
Sanchez, while short, was no weakling. Sinew covered every inch of his arms. There was no way he’d slipped a cuff, which meant he picked the lock. He stared at her. The lion hunted the lamb. Malice radiated through his pores. And malice scared her far more than rage.
Gen scanned the tabletop for a pen. She didn’t want to be stabbed by anything, but a pen left gaps a doctor couldn’t easily stitch. Gaps left scars; raised, gnarled, and discolored skin. There wasn’t a pen in sight. She hadn’t brought anything with her. What had Sanchez brought to the party? The image of a roughly filed plastic spoon with a razor-sharp point flashed in her mind.
“Where’s your mouthy cunt comeback, Roja?”
She had none. There were words she could speak. She could plead. It wouldn’t help. She could bargain. But she wouldn’t. Death would be easier than a promise that would slowly kill her to keep.
The eyes of the damned studied her. She stared back into the abyss.
Scream. Call the guard. Run for the door. Something! Now!
Fear paralyzed every muscle, nerve, and blood vessel.
“Ha! Nothing?” Sanchez spread his arms wide and tilted his head, listening. He drew a deep breath through his nose, then hissed it out between his teeth. “That’s better.”
His hands clapped together so fast and so loudly, Genevieve jumped. Everything inside her relinquished control to a bone-deep quiver. Suddenly, she was nine years old again, and Uncle LeRoy’s massive hand connected with her cheek. Pain exploded behind her eyes.
Don’t you know better? When a door is closed, you knock! You better not make me tell your father. That’ll be big trouble, little lady. Big trouble for you and your sister.
Evangeline’s sobs seeped through the crack in the bedroom door, past her uncle, tormenting Genevieve thirty-four years later.
“Now.” Sanchez smacked his chest, reeling her back to the present. “Let me tell you how this is going to end.”
Anger slowly bubbled around her stilted blood vessels and through her muscles.
He pointed a finger from his half-skull hand at her. “You’re going to forget about that whore GeGe, and the bitchy little girl of hers, and that whiny little boy. You’re going to put that fine ass and your magic lawyer skills to use to defend me against Carlina's family and get me my son.”
Anger had gotten her through childhood. Cunning had gotten her through the teen years. This minute, she needed both.
“It’s going to cost you.” Genevieve shoved the chair as far back from the table as she could without being awkward and stood.
“Money, I have.” Sanchez stood too.
She folded her arms over her chest, turned away from the door, and paced. “First, I’ll have to find a judge who’ll take your money. Believe it or not, some people have integrity in this world. I know quite a few of them.”
“Ha! You only think you do.”
With her gaze cast to the ceiling, Gen let her periphery catalog the man’s movements. He kept to his side of the table but mimicked her pace, blocking her route to the door. The shackles remained in place around his ankles, but they didn’t slow him down enough for her to make a run for the door.
“What does that mean?”
“You think that just because your people have fancy houses and big bank accounts that they’re upstanding citizens? You think that just because Perry and Pamela were doe-eyed for each other that he couldn’t kill her?” His laughter filled the small room. “Gringos.”
She stopped and rounded on him. “I thought you killed GeGe and her bitchy little girl and whiny boy.”
“Careful, Roja.” He stopped too and squared to her, lifting his chin and glaring down his nose.
She didn’t tower over him, but she won in both height and weight. It was something on which to hold a hope or two.
“I could have killed them, and you know it. Perry could have, yet you refuse to believe it. Love and hate are a heartbeat away. Remember that. A heartbeat away.”
“Next, you’ll have jury costs.” She continued walking, unable or unwilling to analyze his words now. “I won’t have you threatening hardworking people just trying to do their civic duty.”
Why had the corrections officer not noticed them up and walking around the goddamned room? It broke policy. As did Sanchez’s free fucking hands. Twice since she’d been pacing she had seen the back of his head in the small window. Did he not have peripheral vision or the dutiful sense to check in on his charge?
“And if they don’t take the money?”
“I’ll make sure they do. In jury selection, I’ll pick people with financial woes; overdrawn accounts, medical bills, bankruptcies. There are more of them to choose from with every day that passes.”
“What next?”
Genevieve walked past her chair as though making another lap but stopped and took one step backward. She placed her left hand on the back of it and turned toward Sanchez. As she’d hoped, he blocked her path to the door, putting him two steps to the right of the large metal exit.
“There’s my fee.” Gen forced a smile. “I’m not cheap on a regular day. Put me on the opposite side of the courtroom, and it’s double. Put me there against my will, and we double that.”
“Don’t forget where you are, r—”
She heaved the chair up from the ground and used both hands to shove it through the thick air toward the door.
A freight train collided with her body. It knocked her off her heels, and the room tilted. Florescent brilliance filled her vision. She swam in nothingness, weightless for seconds. Gravity took hold and yanked her to the unyielding concrete. Every particle inside her lungs evaporated. Impact created a vacuum.
Then Sanchez consumed her gaze. His hands locked around her neck, and his fingers bit into her flesh. His forehead drove the back of her skull into the ground.
For several seconds, everything was okay. Nothing hurt. There was no shank arching toward her middle. She wasn’t dead.
Just as quickly, Genevieve’s body remembered the taste of oxygen. And those precious seconds without it translated into infinity. She was starved. Her body thrashed. Her fingers clawed. If she could’ve screamed, she surely would have, but nothing moved in or around her neck.
“If you ever threaten me again, Roja, I’ll fuck you while I slowly cut your throat and take your head from your body. Then I’ll have my friends do the same to your friends.” He yanked her into a sitting position. He pulled her because someone was pulling him. “Do you hear me, Roja?” His hands slipped from her neck, and he grabbed at her. “Do you hear me?”
He moved farther away from her as an arm locked around his middle. Still, his fingers clawed at the doorframe. He no longer crushed her neck, but she couldn’t breathe.
Eleven
“The ambulance isn't here yet,” Ronny, the shit-for-personality corrections officer, huffed. His feet moved faster than they had in years in an effort to keep pace with her.
“That’s fine because I don’t need one.” She rushed ahead toward the last checkpoint before she’d be
free of the Tombs’ confines.
“Protocol states that we summon an ambulance when an altercation occurs with any inmate and an outside service provider.”
Since when did Ronny use big words? Was he trying to railroad her?
“And you have summoned it. That doesn’t mean I have to use it.”
“But—”
“Open the gate.” Genevieve didn’t scream. She didn’t know if her throat would allow it, so she clung to composure with both shaking hands.
The closer she got to the outside, the looser her hold on control became. It weighed a thousand pounds and threatened to crush her, much like Edger Sanchez had. She swallowed, and it burned her throat. Liquid fire. The muscles holding up her head ached. A migraine took aim at the back of her skull.
“Like I said in the interview room, I can’t let you leave without filling out an incident report.”
Genevieve stopped because if she didn’t, she’d run into the last steel hurdle to freedom. She turned and faced the man who should’ve hung up his nightstick and cuffs years ago. It was only a matter of time before a younger, thinner, faster man turned them on him.
“If I have to ask you to open this gate one more time, I will slap a lawsuit on you and your employer for holding me against my will without cause. I will bring a lawsuit down upon the negligent officer who allowed the attack and any other person who gets in my way from walking out of that door.” She jabbed a finger at the opaque glass double doors beyond the gate. “And, Ronny, I will not lose. So please, open the fucking gate.”
After Ronny’s wide eyes adjusted, he waved to the officer inside the front-of-house control room. The metal lock gave way, and the door rolled open. She drew a shallow breath, prayed her ankles would hold, and stepped through the opening.
“Miss Holst, please. An incident report could keep the court from showing Sanchez leniency.”
Genevieve ignored the corrections officer and headed for the exit. Too bad the freedom from this place meant the opposite of freedom from the trauma that’d unfolded inside it. The farther away from Sanchez she moved, the louder his words echoed, and the stronger his grip squeezed. She panted and pushed through the door. The muscles in her neck and back twinged. Hazy New York air filled her distressed lungs. To her right, cars zipped by on Centre Street. Self-preservation revolted at the sight of people and traffic. She scrambled down the steps and shuffled left past columns that held up absolutely nothing, under the secured detainee skywalk, and around a large van meant for hauling prisoners. She slowed at the next vehicle and stopped, unable to walk another step. Her hand gripped the last rung on a ladder protruding from the rear of a utility truck.
The streets and cars around her swayed, and Gen doubled over. She heaved once, twice, but nothing fled in the revolt. Hair slipped off her shoulders and created a messy curtain around her face behind which she hid her shame. Lancing pain radiated from her lower back. Her neck throbbed with the pass of each breath. Heaves turned to sobs. Moisture slipped from her eyes and slid down her nose in rapid succession. Imperfect circles splattered the gray stone pavers, turning them as dark as her thoughts.
In the courtroom, Genevieve had been next to invincible for so long, she’d forgotten how vulnerable she truly was. In the city, she walked among people so often, she’d forgotten how exposed she had been to attack. In her life, she’d fucked with so many people without repercussion, she’d forgotten her own mortality. One misstep refreshed reality. God, she hated the fear and insecurities it roused.
“Genevieve?”
Of all the people she didn’t want to see, Detective Graham was second, right under Edger Sanchez, but she couldn’t stop sobbing long enough to tell him as much. Despair hit her like ocean waves. One after another, her fears came, driving her down, stripping her of oxygen, and forcing her to fight to the surface only to be battered low once again.
Everything shook. Hands. Legs. Lips. Core. Complete meltdown.
System failure.
Warmth covered the hand with which she clung to the ladder. That hold was the only thing keeping her from toppling to the ground. Gently, Owen Graham pried her fingers from the metal rung.
Indignation fought fear for control of her brain. She hadn’t asked for his help. Why did all men think women needed their help? Gen yanked her hand away from his and pitched sideways. The ground came up fast and hard. A hiss rushed through her teeth as pain zinged her anew. She blinked up from the pavers past tears and blinding light to see Graham standing over her. His jacket was gone, and his sleeves were rolled once again, revealing a bit more of his inky artwork.
“Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way right now.” Both hands braced on his hips and a hiked brow exclaimed his irritation. He made no move to help her up. “I’m not helping you because you’re a woman. I’m not helping you to get in your pants. I’m not helping you because I think you can’t help yourself. I’m not helping you because I think you need it. I’m helping you because, for better or worse, it’s who I am. I find joy in helping people. Fuck me sideways for caring.” He gave a wide false grin. “And, for the record, caring has fucked me several times in several uncomfortable ways. I get it. Pushing people away keeps you safe. It also keeps you isolated.”
He shoved out his hand. The expression of his blue eyes dared her not to take it.
Gen looked at his calloused palm and long, strong fingers. She could get off the ground without him, but it would hurt more, take longer, and embarrass her further. On any other day, she’d have rolled onto all fours and shoved herself off the ground. Today, however, the world reminded her how sensitive she was. If anyone was going to get it, it would be this hard-assed detective with a surprisingly disarming center. She slid her fingers over his rough palm and held on tight. He placed another hand under her other arm. Together, they transferred her from the ground to the concrete steps just a few feet away.
Back to the entrance with her feet on the lowest step, Genevieve braced her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. She drew several deep breaths and waited for Graham’s wing tips to disappear from view. They only shifted from in front of her to beside her.
They sat together in the chaos of the city. The rhythm of people moving about the world, completely uninterested in anything but their day’s agenda, soothed the most jagged of her edges. It reminded her that life went on, no matter what.
“Thanks,” she croaked.
“Christ, you sound like you snacked on a bag of rocks.”
She shoved the hair back from her eyes and found him sitting there with a bag of peanuts in his hand. Tearing the plastic, he shuffled some into his palm, tossed them into his mouth, and then offered her the package. Her lips itched to smile, but her body didn't allow it. She gave the softest shake of her head, and he returned to feeding himself.
“I have friends.” Why did she feel the need to emotionally defend herself against this man? Because she never let any of them get close enough to warrant a defense.
“I know you do.” His jaw worked a bit more. “They’re some of the most successful women in the city. Your little group is near famous.” He swallowed. “How many boyfriends?”
A pause stretched several beats as she stared at him.
“I’m guessing too many to count or zero.” He twisted the plastic around and around, and secured half of the peanuts in his rear pocket.
How the fuck did this guy get her? Normally, she’d spew rage all over his nice suit, but seeing how it already had detention center stairs all over its butt and she’d been wrung of all her rage …
“Both too many to count and zero.” She swallowed past the pain and fear. “None of them matter.”
He nodded like he understood, but he knew nothing.
“I don’t need your pity.”
“Good thing. I have exactly none to give you. People with actual problems get my pity. Addicts. The homeless. Abused and abandoned children.”
This man, this good man, didn’t deserve her snappy at
titude, though he brought it on himself by staying.
“What happened in there?” His head crooked toward the building.
She drew a deep breath. The longer she sat here with Owen Graham, the easier breathing became. The less she focused on Sanchez’s words, the less she felt his hand around her neck. The longer she sat next to Owen Graham, the longer she wanted to sit with him.
“Nothing.”
“A ball breaker like you, who feasts on criminals for a living and can hold her own with the most gnarly of judges, doesn’t cry over nothing.”
Genevieve blotted her face with the back of her hand. As if removing the evidence could change what he’d seen. The man had witnessed her total breakdown.
“Everyone has an off day every now and again,” she explained.
“My last off day led to a psychopathic, narcissistic murderer being released into the world. Would that about sum up your off day?”
And just like that, the magic was gone. He wasn’t helping because it made him feel good inside. He helped because he hedged for information. What better way to squeeze the un-squeezable than when she was losing her shit?
Gen stood. The world tilted but didn’t topple. Neither did she.
Graham sat with his forearms braced on thighs that stretched the width of his slacks wearing a relaxed and unapologetic expression. The shrewd blue gaze of his cataloged the crazy red hair crowding her face, the button missing from her blouse—news to her also—and her twisted and hiked a little too high skirt.
Both their mouths opened to speak.
Behind him, a detention center door groaned. Gen’s gaze shot to it. Her brain paused all function. The secured panel swung wide, and the largest black man she’d ever seen, still to this day, trundled out. She didn’t know how he kept from teetering over with the hulking torso, boulder-like shoulders, and arms the size of Graham’s thighs.
Why (Stalker Series Book 2) Page 10