by Mark Stone
“No, she’s not! She can’t be in love with him! You’re just trying to screw with my mind,” Brendan screamed.
Jessie leaned down slightly, preparing to make her move. “I’m not messing with your mind, Brendan. It’s been messed with enough,” Jessie said. “I am, however, aiming for your head.”
“What?” Brendan asked.
Before he could react, though, Jessie slid down into position in the seat. She threw both her feet into the back of the man’s head, causing it to move forward quickly and slam into the steering wheel. The car skidded and swerved on the road as Jessie lunged into the front seat. She grabbed the wheel and put her foot on the brake as the man gathered himself.
He pushed her away, but the car was already in the grass on the side of the road, already slowing to a near stop.
“Get the hell off me!” he roared. “Screw the plan and the autopsy report. I’m going to make you pay for this.”
“No, you’re not,” Jessie said, feeling the tranquilizer gun Brendan shot her with beneath her. She pulled it out and quickly shot him twice in the chest, doubling the dose he’d given her. “You’re going to take a nap until all of this is over, and I don’t give a damn what anyone finds in your system.”
25
Moving Brendan to the backseat wasn’t an easy task. He was bigger than Jessie, obviously, and his body was all dead weight thanks to the tranquilizers. In addition to that, Jessie's head was still swimming a little. She felt tired and sore. If she could have, she would have lain down and allowed the drugs to work their way out of her system, but there wasn’t time for that. Sure, she called the Savannah Police Department, introduced herself, and explained the situation. They were on their way, but she had no way of knowing what Michelle would do to Roman if she was kept waiting.
The crazy woman had called Brendan’s phone three times since Jessie knocked him out, and a text from her asked what was taking so long. Jessie had to imagine that if she were kept waiting much longer, Michelle would assume her plan had been foiled. If that happened, Jessie shuddered to think what the woman might do to Roman.
That was why she couldn’t just wait for the police. It was why, pulled into a pier across the street from the abandoned building where Michelle seemingly held Roman, Jessie knew she had to move.
Stepping out of the car, she had her gun in its holster and the tranquilizer gun Brendan had in her hand. She would use it first if she could. Hopefully, it would be the only weapon she needed to use tonight. Even though Michelle had been responsible for the deaths of two innocent people, Jessie still loathed the idea of using lethal force on her. Jessie never wanted to take a life if she didn’t absolutely have to. Besides, someone as cold, calculated, and cutthroat as Michelle deserved to have to sit in a prison cell for the rest of her life. Anything less would be far too lenient.
Now that she was armed, Jessie took a moment to look over the building where Roman was likely being kept. It was an abandoned little block, a lot like the gas station that had exploded a few days ago. The red dots on the side told Jessie this place used to be a liquor store, though. She didn’t like that, not because of the implications of selling alcohol. Jessie was known to throw a few back with the best of them. It was just that liquor stores usually locked themselves up tight. A store that size would have two entrances at the most. That meant Michelle would see her coming. It meant Michelle likely locked one of the entrances, giving her a clear view of where Jessie would be coming from.
She likely expected Jessie to be unconscious, but she was going to get a rude awakening. Of course, that wasn’t the only surprise Jessie would need if she intended to survive this. Jessie would also have to sneak up on Michelle, and since there was no way to do that, given the size and nature of the building, she was going to have to use a different method. She was going to have to go with a distraction.
But what kind of distraction? Jessie looked back at the car and narrowed her eyes as an idea came to her. Then, as the idea took shape, she realized Brendan was still in the backseat. That wouldn’t work. There was a tree in the parking lot of the old liquor store, the remnants of greenery used to probably entice customers. Jessie didn’t have much to use for a distraction, but the way she saw it, a car slamming into a tree was about as distracting a thing as she could think of. She didn’t want to risk hurting Brendan, though. She was going to have to fix that problem. She was going to have to pull on him again. She was going to have to lug his troublesome ass out of the car and handcuff him to the pier until the rest of the cops showed up.
“Damn,” she muttered to herself, remembering how heavy he had been. “The things I do in the name of justice.”
After pulling him out and latching him securely to a metal spoke running along the pier, Jessie got back into the car. Turning the engine over, she trained her sights on the tree.
“Here we go,” she murmured, pressing hard on the gas.
The car took off like a rocket, practically flying over the road and into the parking lot.
Heat rose in Jessie’s body. She knew she only had a second to get it right. The tree came into her line of sight quickly, growing larger and larger with each passing instant. She didn’t have another second. If she was going to make this work, she was going to have to do it now.
Jessie kicked open the door and flung herself out of the speeding car. She tried to tuck and roll, but hitting the pavement still hurt like hell. She yelped, hearing the thunderous sound of the car smashing into the tree as she rolled over and over on the pavement. She tasted blood and felt a sharp pain in her leg, but she was okay.
When she stopped rolling, she pulled the tranquilizer gun from her waistband, where she had placed it before getting back into the car. The parking lot was dark, aside from a light shining onto the store. Still, she figured that when Michelle came out, she could lie still on the parking lot and make her move from there.
As if on cue, Michelle came running out of the front door. Her eyes were wide and shocked when she saw the car.
“What the hell? Brendan, you idiot! I gave you one job!” she shrieked.
“Don’t blame him,” Jessie said, jumping to her feet. “He wasn’t the one behind the wheel.” She pointed the tranquilizer gun and fired two shots at Michelle. They both hit her squarely in the chest and she fell.
Instantly, Jessie ran toward the building. Sidestepping the wreckage of the car and ignoring the pain in her leg, she passed by Michelle on the ground.
Coming up to the doorway, she saw Roman there. He was awake but bound by the same thick tape Jessie had been in when she woke up.
“I’m coming!” she screamed, but then she felt a pull at her leg. It was hard and sharp and it tugged her to the ground. It knocked the tranquilizer gun out of her hand.
After hitting hard, she looked up to see Michelle standing back up.
“You think I’d plan this much and forget to wear a vest?” Michelle asked, pulling her shirt up just a little to reveal the bulletproof vest underneath.
“Damn,” Jessie muttered.
“Yep,” Michelle said, slamming her boot hard into Jessie’s face.
Jessie tasted blood again and saw stars as Michelle grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into the building.
“Leave her alone!” Roman said. “You want me! You got me! Let her go!”
“I would have let her go,” Michelle said. “I don’t have anything against Jessie St. James, but she’s too close now. She dug through to the truth, and now she has to be dealt with. It’s for the best. There’s actually something poetic about it. You got Bart locked up for trying to kill a police officer, and now you’ll go to jail for the rest of your life for actually killing one. I couldn’t have plotted a more fitting ending. You’re finally going to get what you deserve.” She pointed the gun at Jessie, stepping closer to the woman. “As soon as I use your gun to blow her brains out, no one in the world will ever believe you weren’t responsible.”
“He wouldn’t hurt me,” Jessie s
aid, spitting blood as she spoke.
“That’s sweet, but it hardly matters,” Michelle said. “The way everyone will see it is that your investigation into Lara Edward’s death led you to uncover Roman’s drug activity. He didn’t want you to expose him, so he lured you here and killed him.”
“I already told the police the truth. They’re on their way,” Jessie said.
“And who do you think they’ll believe?” she asked. “Once you’re dead, all that will be left is me and a mountain of evidence supporting what I say. Nothing is going to stop Roman from going down, and it’s exactly what he deserves for what he did to Bart.”
“I didn’t do anything to Bart!” Roman shouted. Then, looking over at Jessie, he said, “I promise, I didn’t. He was in trouble when we were kids. He had gotten in deep with that Weston guy. He owed him a bunch of money, and he said he’d get killed if he couldn’t deliver all the product . . . all the drugs. I said I would help him, but only so he wouldn’t die. Even then, I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stand the idea of losing Bart.” Roman shook his head. “One night, I got a call, the night I was supposed to take you to the prom. It was from Weston. He said I needed to help him again, and if I didn’t, Bart would die. So I went to the spot where we usually met to do deliveries. I thought that’s what I was going to do again, but when I got there, it was something else.”
“What was it?” Jessie asked as Roman’s face steeled over.
“Apparently, an undercover cop was digging into Weston. He found out and sent Bart after the guy. Bart couldn’t go through with it, though. He beat the man to within an inch of his life and stuffed him in a trunk, but then he just froze. He couldn’t kill him, thank God. So Weston called me to finish the job.”
“Roman,” Jessie gasped.
“Don’t be too disappointed. He’s far too much of a coward to actually have done anything useful. When he got there, not only did he not do what he was told, but he went soft and turned Bart in,” Michelle said. “You turned on your own blood and sent him to jail.”
“He committed a crime,” Roman said.
“So did you! You ran drugs, and you didn’t serve a day!” Michelle screamed. “And do you know why? Because they dropped the charges when he agreed to testify against his own cousin.”
“That’s not why I agreed to testify,” Roman said. “I did it because it was right.”
“I wonder if anybody will drop the charges after this.” Michelle cackled. “I kind of doubt it.”
“But Lara and Brendan,” Jessie choked out.
“They were pawns,” Michelle said. “Lara had connections to Sanibel Island and Brendan was easy enough to exploit. He’ll die too after this, if you haven’t already killed him.”
“I’m not a murderer,” Jessie said softly.
“Doesn’t that make you special?” Michelle said. “You might not be a murderer.” She moved closer to the woman, the gun still trained on her. “But you’re about to be murdered. So, let me ask you, Jessie St. James, do you have anything you want to say for yourself?”
“Yeah,” she said, having dug through her pocket again as Michelle was talking. “Nobody ever thinks about the nail file.”
Instantly, she jabbed the file deep into Michelle’s leg.
Michelle screamed and wrenched backward. Jessie leapt up and grabbed Michelle’s wrist, bringing it down hard against a bar. The gun fell from Michelle’s hand as Jessie used her other hand to hit her with a left hook and then punch her square in the gut. As she leaned forward in pain, Jessie gave her an uppercut, knocking the woman flat on her back.
As she lay there, dazed and helpless on the floor, Jessie grabbed her gun from its holster and pointed it at Michelle, making sure the woman wouldn’t try anything.
“So, it’s technically not your fault, but it’s close enough. I’m going to take it out on you, anyway.” She kicked her hard in the gut. “That’s for making me miss my prom.”
26
“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Katie asked, eyeing Jessie from across a table stuck into the sand in the beach behind her parents’ house. “Because you can make whatever decision you want. You really don’t have to feel all pressured into making one decision or the other.”
“I don’t feel pressured,” Jessie said, taking a sip of her drink and laughing at her best friend. It had been a few weeks since the entire ordeal with Michelle, and in that time, she had done some thinking about things. She felt it was time to come to a decision, and she was confident that she knew exactly what that decision was.
“I’m just saying, if you wanted to stay home for awhile, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Your parents love you. They want you to stay home, to stay here with them. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that decision.”
“There isn’t,” Jessie agreed. “And if I were a different person, maybe I would take them up on that offer. I’d sit in my room and read magazines while my mother cooked me dinner and did my laundry. I’d sleep easy at night knowing my father would be there if anything happened. But I’m not that type of person.”
“The smart type?” Katie asked. “Because all of that sounds awesome.”
“It is,” Jessie agreed. “But it’s also what children do. I love being back home on Sanibel. It’s where I belong, but this house isn’t. It might have been my home, but it can’t be where I live moving forward. I was on my own in Chicago, and I can’t move backward now. It was nice being in my parents’ house. But it was never meant to be permanent.”
“Does your mom know that?” Katie asked.
“She does,” Jessie answered. “She doesn’t necessarily agree with it, but she will. I just explained to her that my not living here doesn’t mean I won’t ever see her and Dad. They’ll see me every day. They just won’t see my underwear rumbling around in their dryer.”
“But I will,” Katie said, chuckling. “I still can’t believe you want to live with me.”
“Why not?” Jessie asked. “You’re my best friend. You’re the natural choice. Besides, there’s something about having you with me that I think would make any place feel like home.”
“Even that place where you got your face beat in?” Katie asked.
“You have to stop posting about that.” Jessie laughed. “And I’m not sure about that place. We’ll find something, though. We’ll start looking again on Monday, and this time, we’ll look for somewhere we can share.”
“Can’t wait,” Katie said.
“Me neither,” Jessie said.
“Looks like there’s someone else who can’t wait,” Katie said, pointing back toward the house.
Jessie followed her friend’s finger to find Roman walking toward them, his hands in his pockets. Instantly, she sat up straighter. “Roman? What is he doing here?”
“The mind boggles at the possibilities,” Katie said, grinning slyly. “Why don’t you go see him?”
“Maybe I will,” Jessie said. “You know, just to make sure he’s okay.”
“Of course,” Katie said, laughing as Jessie got up and walked toward her partner.
Jessie had seen Roman too much since that night in Savannah. He was on leave, healing up from being run over. She’d stopped by a time or two and sent a gift basket, but she didn’t want to push things too hard. Still, seeing him walking toward her now made her feel better about a lot of things she couldn’t quite explain right now.
“You look like you’re feeling better,” Jessie said, settling in front of her partner and noticing the way the breeze off the Gulf whipped through his hair.
“I’m feeling better,” he said. “Thanks to you. You saved my life.”
“And you saved mine before that, and I saved yours before that. It’s a vicious cycle with us. Let’s not keep score,” she replied.
“Sounds good to me,” he said, looking down at the sand. “As long as you promise you’re not disappointed in me.”
“Disappointed in you?” she asked, her jaw tightening. “Why on eart
h would I be disappointed in you?”
“Michelle wasn’t wrong. I did do illegal things,” he said.
“To save your cousin,” Jessie explained.
“Doesn’t make it right,” he replied. “Especially seeing how things turned out. I just want to make sure you’re not looking at me any differently after everything that’s happened.”
Jessie gazed at the man for a long moment before answering. “I’m sorry, but I am looking at you differently,” she said. “See, I knew you were a good guy, but I thought you grew into a good guy after being a pretty crappy boy. Turns out I was wrong. You did what was right, even then, even when it was really hard to. Michelle talked about turning on your cousin as though it was a weakness, but she’s wrong. That’s the strongest thing I can imagine. So no, when I look at you, I don’t see a crappy boy who turned into a good man anymore. I see a good boy who turned into a great man.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I forgive you about prom, though.”
“Still with the prom?” Roman asked, his eyes widening as a smile moved across his face. “I was stopping a murder. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Afraid not,” Jessie replied. “I bought a dress and my father bought me high heels.”
“Stopped a murder,” he repeated, pointing to himself.
“I waited for three hours,” she replied. “You should have seen the way my parents looked at me. It was humiliating.”
“So, I should have just let the poor guy be murdered?” Roman asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Jessie said. “All I’m saying is that I had a really bad night, and I will continue to blame you for that, regardless of your very valid reasons.”
“Well, that’s not really fair, but I don’t see myself winning this argument,” Roman replied.
“Smart man,” she said.
“How about this?” he asked. “I was responsible for a bad night. Let me be responsible for a good one.”