by Mark Stone
Pulling the key out, she stuck it in the door, turned the knob, and pushed her way into Roman’s house. The place was in complete darkness, which didn’t surprise Jessie. He had likely turned everything off when he left with her to Savannah. Flicking the light switch on, she ran to the stairs toward the bedroom.
There was a time in her life when the thought of being in Roman Parks’s bedroom would have sent butterflies fluttering through her stomach. Those days were past, though. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, and there were more pressing reasons for her to go into his personal space now.
In fact, the sensation that came to her now was guilt. As she ran into the man’s bedroom, flicking on another light switch, she felt bad. Roman was over there, lying helpless in a hospital bed, and here she was, intent on riffling through his things like a dog looking for a bone.
The only thing that gave her peace about intruding upon his privacy was the knowledge that she was doing it for his own good. Though Roman couldn’t give consent for her to pull open all his drawers and rummage through his closet and its contents, exactly as she was doing right now, Jessie knew the man well enough to know that he’d tell her to do it if it was important. And Jessie couldn’t think of many things more important than clearing Roman’s name and getting to the bottom of who was behind all of this.
The thing was, though, Jessie was coming up empty. Aside from a couple of vintage LPs and a picture of his family, there was nothing in here to distinguish Roman’s room from anybody else’s.
“Okay, time for the big stuff,” Jessie said, taking a deep breath and heading under Roman’s bed.
Diving under, she felt around, looking for something, anything that might answer at least part of these questions. All she found under there was a single shoebox.
Pulling it out, she popped the top off to reveal a bunch of old photographs and letters. There were a ton of pictures from high school as well as the patch from Roman’s letterman jacket. She dug deeper and found something that took her breath away.
There, stuffed in a shoebox with a lot of stuff that Roman obviously held very dear, was the clipping from a newspaper from Chicago. The story detailed a new ADA who had just won her first case, an ADA from Sanibel Island. Jessie pursed her lips as she looked at the picture of herself.
“I’ll be damned,” she muttered.
Placing the clipping gently beside the box, she kept going. Jessie dug through old mementos until she thought she was going to drown in nostalgia. There was Roman’s high school diploma, a congratulations card his father bought him after he completed the police academy, and a couple of aged leaves from what must have been a pretty memorable trip to Lake Tahoe. This was a memento box, and soon enough, Jessie started to think that she was looking in the wrong place. But where else was there to look? As wild as Roman seemed to be, his place was as tidy as an operating room. There was nothing, literally nothing else to go through.
Just as she was about to give up, she found the folded up letter. It was old, nearly ancient, and the top of it was stamped with a prison letterhead, letting Jessie know that it came from either an employee or an inmate.
Her eyes scrolled down to the bottom of the letter and saw that it was written by Bart, Roman’s cousin. She gasped. Roman almost never spoke about his cousin. They had been close enough when they were teenagers, but Bart went down a bad road, a road that ended with him going to jail for the attempted murder of a police officer. Jessie shook her head. She could only imagine what this letter said. Though she felt a twinge of guilt for invading Roman’s privacy like this, she read the letter. After all, digging through his things for clues was what she was here to do.
I don’t know why you keep writing to me. I’ve already told you there’s nothing you can say to me to make any of this better. You did what you did. You chose what you chose, and I’m rotting in jail because of it. You think an apology can fix that? Nothing can fix that. You turned your back on your family, on your blood. You’re never going to be anything to me other than a rat bastard who doesn’t know the first thing about life.
Mom told me you’re a cop now. Are you serious? Do they know the crap you’ve pulled? Maybe I should tell them. Maybe I should air your dirty little secrets. Maybe I should tell them about the drugs you delivered and watch your life burn like mine has. It wouldn’t be anything less than you deserve.
Trust me, Roman. One day, you’re gonna get what you deserve. I swear it. I’m going to make you pay for what you did to me.
Don’t ever write me again,
Bart
Jessie took a deep breath, folding the letter back up and putting it in the box. That was a lot. It was harsh. Part of Jessie wondered why Roman would keep it here, in this box full of fond memories and mementos that seemed to mean so much to the man.
She didn’t have time to ponder that, though. Because as soon as the letter fell from her hands, the door opened. Who the hell could that be? Roman was in a hospital bed, and no one knew she was here.
A shot of worry rang through Jessie. She pulled her gun, just in case, and stood. Moving slowly to the door, she heard chatter.
Jumping out from behind the door and into the living room, she pointed her gun at the intruders.
Only, they weren’t intruders. Roman’s dad and sister stood in the living room. Annie yelped and dropped the box she was carrying, throwing her hands up as she saw Jessie.
“Jessie St. James,” Roman’s father said, “what are you doing here?”
Jessie remembered how angry Michelle said Roman’s family was with her. She had to imagine that finding her sneaking around in their son’s house wouldn’t do much to help that. Still, she had to be honest. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was just trying to help.
“I know you’re upset,” she started. “But I just needed to find something, some sort of clue that might make all of this make sense. I honestly don’t mean any harm. I’m just—”
“I know you don’t mean any harm, Jessie,” Roman’s father said. “I don’t know why you think I’d be mad at you. Do your job if you need to, and I don’t mean what are you doing in Roman’s house. I mean what are you doing on Sanibel? Aren’t you supposed to be there with Roman? You told us to stay here until things were better. You said you’d stay with him until you could be sure it was safe for us up there. Why would you leave him now?”
Jessie narrowed her eyes as her head started to spin. “You . . . you told me to leave him,” Jessie said. “You said for me to go and that Michelle should stay with him. I never spoke to you. I never told you anything, sir.”
“I know, the nurse did when she called. She relayed your message,” Roman’s father said. “And I never told you to leave. Why would I do that? You’re his partner. He needs you there. And who is Michelle?”
“Who is Michelle?” Jessie asked, pieces coming together with horrifying clarity in her head. Suddenly, all of it made sense. The framing of Roman, the way his license was found at the gas station, the strange instructions received by Lara, and the woman Salazar talked to. It hadn’t been Lara. It had been Michelle. She was working to frame him. She was . . . she was . . . Oh, God, the name. It was her the entire time. Michelle was actually . . . “Mickey. Michelle is Mickey.”
“I don’t know who that is either,” Roman’s father said. “Jessie. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I can’t, sir. I’m sorry. There’s no time. I have to go. Call the police in Savannah. Tell them to get to Roman’s hospital room immediately,” Jessie said, darting past the pair and through the doorway. She rushed out onto the front yard, reaching for her phone without breaking stride. She had told Roman’s father to call the police, but she wanted to warn him directly too. With any luck, he’d be conscious now.
She nearly slammed into her car as she fumbled for her keys and dialed the number on her phone.
“Jessie?” a voice asked from beside her.
She jumped, dropping her keys and turning toward the sound of the voice. Brendan st
ood there in the dark, his hands behind his back.
“Brendan. What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I was looking for you,” he said simply. “We need to finish this.”
“Finish this?” Jessie asked. “What do you—”
Before she could finish, Jessie saw Brendan move his arm from behind his back. There was something small and black in his right hand. She knew instantly that it was a gun. She also knew that she didn’t have time to pull her own again, having put it back before she ran out the door.
“Brendan. No!” she screamed. The sounds of her screams were muffled by the sound of a gunshot, though. She didn’t feel anything, but within an instant, Jessie St. James was on the ground, looking up at the stars in the bright sky. A second later, as Brendan stepped into view over her, blocking those gorgeous stars, everything went black.
24
Jessie woke slowly, feeling woozy and sick to her stomach. The world seemed to be spinning, moving so quickly that she couldn’t make sense of it. More than that, her entire body, though sluggish, seemed to buzz with some sort of low shaking. Her eyes were heavy and her head pounded painfully along with the beating of her heart. She struggled to pull her eyes open, trying to remember where she was and how she got there.
Her eyes didn’t open, though. It was just too hard and she couldn’t manage it. Instead, she let a low, rumbling moan escape her barely parted lips.
“Somebody’s waking up,” a sleazy and familiar voice sounded from beside her. The sound of it, as well as remembering who it belonged to, changed everything.
Hearing Brendan’s voice sent shockwaves of recognition through the woman. Suddenly, everything came back to her at once, driving into her with all the grace and delicacy of an eighteen-wheeler. She had just found out the truth—part of it, anyway. She was going to run to Roman to save him, hoping against hope that she would have time to warn him about Michelle’s true intentions before she was able to do . . . whatever it was she planned to do to him. Though Jessie had no idea what that could be, she knew enough to know that Michelle hadn’t gotten rid of her for nothing. That woman had a plan for him, and Jessie not being around was a big part of that plan.
That wasn’t all, though. There was a reason Jessie hadn’t made it to Roman, a reason she didn’t drive to Savannah. What was it? What happened to her, and why did it feel like it was connected to Brendan?
The answer came to her like a mournful song, remembering the shot that hit her and falling to the ground. He shot her right in the chest. Was that why she couldn’t open her eyes? Was it why the world seemed to be moving through her as opposed to standing still? Was she dying? Was she already dead? The thought of that was horrifying, but not nearly as horrifying as what her death might do to her parents. They’d already lost Nate. Losing her too would kill the both of them. She couldn’t have that on her conscience. She couldn’t be dying. She wouldn’t allow it.
“No!” she screamed, mustering all the energy that she could, more energy than she imagined she’d be capable of.
Her eyes flew open, a rush of energy moving through her. She took a deep breath, her body shaking and her mouth tightening.
“There she is,” Brendan said from beside her. “Good to have you back, sleepyhead.”
Jessie blinked hard, taking quick, shallow breaths and looking around. It took a second for her to realize where she was, but once she did, everything made sense. The moving, the spinning in her head . . . it was because Jessie was in the backseat of a moving car. She had been placed sitting straight up. Her hands hadn’t been cuffed, but packing tape had been rolled all over her body starting at the shoulders, making her something of a makeshift mummy. She tried to move, tried to break free of the tape or cuffs that bound her. It was impossible, though. There was too much of it.
She had to wonder if she was taped up in order to stop the bleeding that was almost certainly happening because of the bullet she just took. Still, there wasn’t much pain, certainly not as much as she thought would come from that kind of wound.
“Stop wiggling. It’s no use. You’re not getting out of there. I did way too good a job,” Brendan said, shaking his head as he looked at her through the rearview mirror. “I’m actually kind of proud of myself.”
“You . . . you shot me, you sonofabitch,” Jessie said, surprised at how strong her voice was, given how much energy it took just to speak.
“Just with a tranquilizer. Don’t be so dramatic,” he said, giggling. “I was just trying to knock you out. I told her we needed to use more, but she said this was as much as I could use without it being evident in an autopsy later, and we don’t want to give the medical examiner any reason to look further than he has to.”
Jessie blinked hard. That was a lot of information, and none of it boded well for her future.
“You mean Michelle?” she asked, swallowing hard and arching her eyebrows at him.
“You’re not supposed to know that,” Brendan said, though judging from his eyes, he didn’t seem too shaken about the fact that Jessie had that knowledge. “I guess it doesn’t matter. You’ll be dead before the end of the night, anyway.”
“If that’s what you wanted, why not just kill me now?” Jessie asked, looking at the screen in the front of the car and seeing that the navigation was on. Brendan was taking her to a specific building on Abercorn. Jessie memorized the address as Brendan answered.
“That’s not how it works,” Brendan said. “You have to be in Savannah. You have to be in front of Roman. Otherwise, it won’t matter. I can’t shoot you on Sanibel and then let you bleed out all over the backseat of my car. You’d be dead for hours by the time you made it here. No way we’re convincing anybody that Roman killed you with that kind of discrepancy in the timeline.”
“Of course, that’s what this is about,” Jessie said. “All of this has been about Michelle framing Roman for murder. It’s why she fed all that info about Roman being a drug dealer to everyone involved. It’s why Lara was instructed to use Roman’s name at check-in. Hell, it’s why Michelle targeted Lara in the first place.”
“Michelle didn’t target Lara. I did,” Brendan said, practically beaming. “I met Michelle at one of my AA meetings. I was trying to get clean then. We hit it off, fell in love, and eventually, she told me about what Roman did to her.”
“What?” Jessie asked.
“Don’t play coy,” Brendan said. “You’d have to know how abusive he was to her, how he forced her to run away from it all and leave her family, and how without her, her family succumbed to poverty, addiction, and death. They all died because of what he forced her to do. He doesn’t just get to walk away from that!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jessie asked. “Her family lives three streets down from me. They own a travel agency. They didn’t succumb to anything except tourism discounts!”
“You–you’re a liar!” Brendan screamed.
Jessie felt around as best as she could. Her hands would barely move, but she could feel that her gun had been taken from her. That made sense, but it wasn’t the only thing she had.
Putting as much pressure against the tape as she could, Jessie created just enough room to reach into the fifth pocket on her jeans. She remembered putting a mini nail file there, and she’d bet the contents of her bank account that Brendan didn’t think to check for it when he stripped her of her gun. Guys never think about things like nail files and manicures.
Forcing her fingers into the pocket, she felt it. She could have sung if he wouldn’t have heard it. As it stood, she just pulled it out and started sawing at the tape. It would take a little bit to rip through the bulk of it, given the sheer amount, but it was the only option she had. And because she needed that time, she needed to keep this man talking.
“I promise you, I’m not lying,” Jessie said. “Is that why you did all this? Is that why you let her kill Lara, a woman who actually cared about you? My God, is that why you let her kill your brother? Over a crush?�
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“It’s not a crush! We’re in love!” he screamed, veering across the lane before regaining control of the car. “And he wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to be safe. Lara was looking into everything. She was digging around, trying to figure out a way to get me out of Roman Park’s employ, which didn’t exist in the first place.” He blinked back tears. “She got Duncan to help her. By the time we found it out, he knew too much. But he was a good kid. I knew he wouldn’t talk. We were always getting rid of Lara, anyway, and I convinced Michelle that Duncan wouldn’t talk. But when you came knocking, bringing Roman Park with you, for God’s sake, my brother freaked out. He called Mickey and then went running. She told him to meet her somewhere, and if you wouldn’t have followed him, she wouldn’t have had to kill him. He wouldn’t have been a loose end that needed tying up.”
Jessie had torn a hole through the tape by now and was busy ripping it apart. She had to be careful, though. She couldn’t make too many large moves. Otherwise, Brendan might have seen it going on.
“You really believe that, don’t you? God, how messed up are you? He was your brother, Brendan! He loved you!”
“She loves me!” he screamed.
“She’s using you. I’m sorry, but she is,” Jessie said, thinking about all that she knew and piecing together what had to be Michelle’s motive. “She does want revenge on Roman, Brendan. But not because he abused her, not because of anything he did to her. Roman’s cousin blames him for being in jail. I just found a letter where he swore revenge on Roman. What better revenge could there be than having him thrown in jail too? This is all for him. It’s all for Bart. it has to be.”
“Who the hell is Bart?” Brendan asked, his eyes going wide and feral as he looked at Jessie from the rearview mirror.
“He’s the man Michelle actually loves, Brendan. He’s the reason all of this is happening,” Jessie said, tearing through the rest of the plastic and freeing herself.