by Dawn Edwards
But no matter how I looked at it, I just couldn't fathom that I would kill the poor girl. I was already guilt-ridden for what we had done to Josh, and I wasn't even the one who injected the drugs into him. Sure, Jessa wasn’t the love of my life, but I truly did care for her. Not how she deserved, but I was too bitter to love anyone like that.
If not for my siblings, I think I may have been able to grow to love her like she deserved in time. I had been honest with her about wanting to get back to how we were in the beginning. I wanted her to trust me and look at me again like she once did. We’d had some good times at the start of our relationship. But I never felt I was the guy that her parents or friends wanted her to end up with. I hated that. Not only did it make me feel like shit, it also could potentially put a snag in the plans my brother and sister had been crafting for years.
There’s a reason they call being in prison ‘doing time.’ You do anything you can to pass it, but no matter what, most of the time you are alone and lost with your own thoughts for hours, sometimes days on end. One thing I hadn’t been able to shake was the feeling I had been used by my siblings, and they had left me in here to rot.
I thought that my feelings would subside a bit after my guilty verdict last year, but it had been the opposite. It seemed that with each passing day, I was growing more and more bitter at my situation and that they were free, living on the outside.
I’d had a few jobs while on the inside. I started out in the kitchen, did some cleaning, and once all my paperwork was finally processed correctly, they had me assisting the teacher who was brought in for the GED program. Turned out, I was only one of three people in here with a university degree.
Some days, we got to go on the internet. It was highly monitored, and we weren’t allowed social media or email, but it was still nice to be able to read the news. Today, I had a meeting with the prison administration about what students were doing well, who was ready to write their GED’s, and who were likely to pass. This was all going to be put in their file and could be used in parole hearings. One I had to wait 20 years for, possibly earlier if I continued with good behavior.
I tried as best I could to fly under the radar, but it was jail, and it was inevitable to get into scuffs. Thankfully, I hadn’t been in one for a few months now.
Despite the God-awful food, I looked forward to mealtimes. I got my tray of slop and made my way to the middle of the dining hall to eat with my roommate and a few others I hung around.
‘Yo Willie,’ my roommate said. It was short for Wilson, but was a nickname I hated, especially since I was in prison and it wasn’t the best thing to be called. ‘What’s the name of the girl you offed?’
I rolled my eyes. I’d never come out and said I offed her. Even after I’d been found guilty, I always maintained my innocence, just not openly in jail; it was the one place that murder bought me some street cred.
‘My fiancée’s name was Jessa,’ I answered him, looking at the disgusting pasta that was set in front of me.
‘Yeah, that airplane guy’s daughter, right?’ he followed up excitedly.
‘So?’ I questioned, angry he was bringing her up. He was slightly bi-polar in my opinion. He had good days and bad days, and today was obviously a good one.
‘So, you ain’t seen the news yet?’ he smiled. He worked in laundry and they always had TV on with the news when they sorted and folded items. ‘You gettin’ out! That bitch is alive, been all over the news this morning.’
I dropped the fork that was midway to my mouth and looked at him. ‘What?’ I questioned him. There was no reason for him to be fucking with me, he knew better, plus it wasn’t his style.
‘They ain’t shown her yet, but the DA and one of them airplane people were on the news stating that she’s been found and an investigation was currently underway.’ He had the biggest smile on his face.
‘I hope you remember me when you get your settlement for suing their asses,’ he laughed as I got to my feet, leaving my tray where it was and walking back to the cell area to use the phone. I needed to call my lawyer, I needed to talk to the warden, I needed to get the fuck out of here as soon as possible. I needed to speak to my siblings to start retaliation.
‘Inmate, back to your table,’ one of the guards bellowed at me.
‘I need to call my lawyer,’ I pleaded.
‘You can make the call after mealtime is over.’ He was uncaring, his monotone voice a clear giveaway.
‘No, I need to get out of here, the person I’m here in for killing is alive, it's all over the news.’
‘And I’m sure she will still be alive after mealtime is over, go back to your seat.’ He wasn’t even looking at me at this point, and I wanted nothing more than to punch the motherfucker, but he had a good half a foot and fifty pounds of muscle on me. All that would happen is that I would be put in solitary confinement and be delayed getting out of this hellhole.
I returned to the table and watched the clock tick away before I beelined it to the phones to call my lawyer. He wasn’t in, surprise, surprise. I left a message. With any luck, he heard the news and was on his way to help me sort this shit out.
The next thing I did was seek out one of the supervising guards.
That took some time, but eventually, I got Charles, a middle-aged guy who was clearly ex-military. ‘Wilson, I heard you had an urgent issue?’
I nodded, standing up from the table and chairs in the open areas between the cells. ‘Yeah, I need to speak with the warden,’ I said seriously, but he laughed at me instead.
‘Good luck with that, kid.’
‘No, the girl I’m in here for murdering is alive, it’s all over the news.’
His face turned from humored to serious in a split second. ‘That Cahill girl?’
‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘Jessa was my fiancée. My roommate told me it was on the news, I haven’t seen it yet. So if it’s true, I can leave?’
Charles shook his head. ‘Not that easy, your lawyer will need to bring this to a judge, there will be a ruling…’
‘What the fuck, she’s out there, alive, and you are telling me I have to stay in here?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t make the rules, I just have to enforce them. I suggest calling your lawyer and getting him to start to the process.’
‘I’ve left him a message.’
‘The DA knows about it, I’m sure your lawyer has already been informed.’ I was nodding, taking some comfort in his words.
‘But I really can’t leave here?’
‘Not without a judge’s order, I’m afraid.’
‘Fuck,’ I murmured storming off to my cell.
~
Two days. It took my lawyer two fucking days to haul his ass out to see me. I had been in the middle of a tutoring session when one of the guards informed me that my lawyer was here.
‘It took you long enough,’ I spit out, sitting down at a table in a room I’d never been in before. I looked around to notice that it had two-way glass, ‘What’s going on?’ I demanded. ‘You better have petitioned the fucking judge and have a pardon for me in that cheap messenger bag of yours.’
‘Not quite,’ he informed me, taking out a few documents and a tablet. ‘There’s incriminating evidence that has been brought to our attention. On the other side of that glass is the current District Attorney David Fitzpatrick, the Cahills attorney Abby Dawson, and a few other junior lawyers from the DA’s office and Jordan Green’s law firm.’
‘Shit…’ I whispered. They brought out the big guns, this couldn't be good. But I didn’t know what evidence they could have on me other than the fake passports, which I had always wondered if Jessa had somehow found out about and stolen. ‘I don’t see why they came all the way out here, they could have called me with an apology.’
‘We have your brother’s confession on this table, Matthew, or based on all the evidence that’s been presented, should I call you Justin?’
My head snapped up to him and then to the mirror. Fuck, th
ey knew, but just how much they knew I would let them reveal to me and not the other way around.
‘A detective would like to come in to interview you, I’ll be here.’
I nodded and a door opened and in walked Detective Chad O’Brien, a guy I’d met a few times during my arrest. I looked to him but that was as far as I went to acknowledge him.
‘Justin Taggart,’ he said my real legal name, a name I hadn’t heard in many years. ‘You must have thought you were a free man when you saw Jessa return.’
‘I am, I didn’t kill her.’
‘No, but how about you tell me your version of what happened the night Josh Cahill died.’ He looked at me with a smug look of satisfaction on his face. ‘You see, we have your sister in custody, and that tablet has a confession from your brother, Christopher is it?’
I wanted to tell him that he wasn't even there, but then I would be admitting to his existence. ‘You can play hardball all you want, Justin, but we are giving you the chance to set the record straight, to see your side of things, see how they match up to what your siblings have told us.’
‘Where’s Julia?’ I had to ask.
‘She’s locked up.’
‘And where’s Christopher?’
‘He’s currently in a jail cell in Morocco, awaiting extradition papers to Canada, but we’re trying to get him here. Our system is a little less lenient for the likes of you three.’
I took a deep breath and looked to the mirror where I knew Abby was watching me, likely enjoying every moment watching me sweat like the ballbuster she was. That chick was too uptight to ever unwind, a night in this place would do the bitch good. ‘Abby, please tell Jessa it wasn’t me, I didn’t want him to die. Christopher made Julia do it, and I’m so sorry.’
‘How about you start from the beginning.’
I nodded, remembering that night a few years back. It was before I purchased my condo with Jessa. I hated the small studio apartment I had been renting and worked long hours at my office at the back of my sister’s salon, where I had a bed and a small kitchenette. When I needed, I could always pop upstairs and use her shower.
JULIA: Josh is on his way over for the night. Make yourself scarce.
MATT: No worries, that’s not a sight I wish to see
MATT: Let me know when he’s gone in the morning, I’ll be working most of the night and crashing here.
JULIA: Cindy better not be there with you.
JULIE: I’ve warned you.
My sister was always warning me off that chick, but Cindy was harmless to our plans. She wasn’t smart enough to figure out a parking meter, let alone our cons. When it came to her, we were safe. Besides, I had a lot of work to catch up on tonight, Jessa had been a bit demanding with my time. If I didn’t pull an all-nighter, I’d risk pissing off some pretty wicked people, and I tried never to do that. Which meant tonight I would unfortunately be alone.
It was the middle of the night when I awoke to pounding on the door from the floor above.
Julia’s door.
‘Jordanna, open the fucking door.’
I sat straight up in bed. My internal alarms were not only ringing, they were strobing lights and vibrating me to the core of my being. No one ever used her given name anymore, not even myself or my brother. Everyone we knew now called her Julia.
Hairs rose on my neck when I realized who it was, and that person had bad news inked all over his body.
Jean-Luc was a drug dealer, a big-time dealer. He was an old friend of my father’s from back in the day, one of the men he flew drugs for. A man he worked for in Montreal and the man who we tried to stay as far away from as possible. We had our own hustle, we didn’t want to get caught up in drugs.
We laundered his money, but that was the extent of our interactions with him. However, that didn’t happen at four in the morning on a Thursday. I heard the floorboards creak above my head, the sound of two sets of feet, and that was when I remembered that Josh was up there with my sister.
If I went up there, my cover would be blown.
I put on my pants and shoes as I cracked the backdoor slightly with all the lights off to hear what was going on. The fire escape stairs that lead up to her apartment on the second floor were right outside the back door that opened onto the alley.
I saw a black SUV parked at the bottom of the stairs. There was one guy in the driver’s seat and the passenger door was open, illuminating the rest of the car that appeared to be empty.
I walked back to my desk and got out my gun. I’d never had to use it before, but my father made sure we all knew how to use one.
‘Dude, you have the wrong house,’ I heard Josh’s annoyed voice.
Jean-Luc laughed. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘I’m the boyfriend, and there’s no Jordanna here, you have the wrong house,’ Josh sounded angry, a tone that was foreign to me.
‘No, I don’t, you tell your girlfriend, Jordanna, or Jessica or Jasmin, or whatever fucking identity she’s using at the moment, to get her perky ass out of bed. I’m cashing in on a favor.’
‘You need to go before I call the cops.’
I heard the distinct sound of a gun being primed. ‘Dead men can’t make calls.’
I knew my sister heard it too, because I heard footsteps hurry across the floor above my head to the direction of where I assumed Josh was still standing in the doorway shitting his pants.
‘And there she is,’ Jean-Luc mused.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ my sister hissed.
‘Cashing in a favor.’
‘But…’
‘But nothing, you’ve already made me wait long enough. I don't have time for you playing house with this coward.’ I heard a thump of something hitting the floor followed by another. ‘I have two more bags in the car, send your errand boy down to help me.’
Jean-Luc made his way down the stairs, my sister hot on his heels.
‘Julia,’ Josh called out, chasing after her.
‘Josh, stay in the apartment.’
Who…’
‘Just let me deal with this,’ she yelled at him as she reached the bottom of the stairs. I didn’t see Josh follow her from my limited visual of the scene playing out in front of me.
‘Jean-Luc, what the actual fuck?’
‘I got a tip the police are going to raid my place and I need a place to keep my stash. I don't trust anyone else down here at the moment.’
‘Jean-Luc, he’s not a part of any of this.’
‘Yeah, that was evident by his pajamas,’ he laughed.
Jean-Luc’s driver walked to the back of the SUV and pulled out another two duffle bags and tossed them at my sister’s feet. ‘Keep them secure, I’ll be back for them in a few days.’
‘A few days,’ my sister hissed. ‘I can’t keep this kind of product lying around.’
‘I’ll send a guy in the morning when the dust settles to guard it if that makes you feel better.’
‘No, it doesn’t…’
‘Well, you don't have a choice,’ Jean-Luc said as he got in his SUV, driving off and leaving my sister in the alley with what appeared to be a significant amount of drugs.
‘Julia,’ Josh came running down the stairs. ‘What the fuck is going on?’
She picked up the two bags, clearly struggling under the weight before Josh took them from her. ‘Go back upstairs,’ she instructed.
‘Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on here, why did he call you Jordanna?’
I took a deep breath and rested my head on the wall. My sister was good at playing her part in the con, but she was stressed and I knew she really cared for this guy. Everyone had their breaking point, and I feared she was reaching hers.
‘Josh,’ she whispered in her angry frustrated voice. ‘I am not having this conversation out in the open in a back alley.’
He let out a breath and led the way back up to her apartment, carrying the massive amounts of drugs.
I heard the door close
and the two bags fall to the ground. Their voices were muffled but I could still make out Josh’s voice. I’d never seen him angry, I didn’t think Julia ever had either.
‘Please tell me it’s not what I think it is, in those bags.’
‘If you think it’s bags of apples, I'm not going to correct you.’
‘You have got to be fucking kidding me right now,’ Josh screamed. ‘How the fuck can you make jokes, that...that...fuck, I don’t even know what to call him. That criminal just pulled a gun on me in your doorway and you’re making jokes.’
‘I…’
‘And how the fuck do you even know someone like that, and why is he calling you Jordanna?’
‘He’s a client, and I don't know why, maybe he’s mistaken my name.’
I heard footsteps head back to the bedroom. ‘What are you doing?’ she yelled.
‘Jules, we have to call the police,’
I heard a scuffle, like they were wrestling, ‘Fuck, no, he’ll kill us.’
‘Jules, if you are messed up in this shit, I can’t have anything to do with it.’
I heard things start to move around, like he was getting angry, a side of him I’d never seen before. I had no idea what he was capable of. I knew he outweighed my sister and was a lot taller than she was. I didn’t think he was a violent man, but everyone had their limit.
I was already walking up her stairs when my phone vibrated in my pocket, I took it out to see a message from my sister.
JULIA: You awake?
JULIA: Get up here now
She wouldn't be asking for my help if she didn’t think she needed it. This was going to blow everything.
As I opened the door, I saw Josh, dressed and carrying his bag, walking out of the bedroom and straight for the door.
He stopped dead in his tracks. ‘Matt?’ he questioned. ‘The fuck?’ He turned around to Julia who was hot on his heels. ‘This night keeps getting more fucked up, I need to go.’
I stood in the doorway. ‘Can’t let you do that I’m afraid.’