Possession Read online

  I shrug. “I don’t consider it at all. I wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger. Don’t know who did, either.”

  Which is true. I don’t know.

  Agent Lemming adjusts himself on the chair, pulling it closer to the table. “Tell me, Grim. What could you have done to Marco to make him hate you so much? You kill his dog? Jack his drugs? Fuck his sister? His girl?”

  I take a deep drag, trying not to choke on the smoke as worry floods my entire body. Lemming is right, Marco wouldn’t risk losing all that cash the H he planted on us would’ve brought in for anything petty. His obsession with Tricks is massive, but Lemming has brought up a good point. There has to be more to all of this. A missing piece to the situation I’m not seeing. “I don’t know. You’re the detective,” I say, tossing the ball back in his court. “Figure it out.”

  Lemming’s forehead wrinkles. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. So, let’s start over with the facts. Due to the condition of the body, the coroner who arrived on scene places the time of death right about the time you disappeared after your eulogy, which several witnesses have confirmed. Tell me, Grim. Where were you? Who were you were with? Give me one other person, beside your family who can give you an alibi.”

  Tricks. She’s the only one. I can’t tell him that. I won’t. I’m not about to announce that I was with her, just to save my own ass and risk getting her killed on the chance that I’m wrong and Marco doesn’t know about us. I’ll take the fucking cell, chair, needle, whatever they want to give me, but I won’t put Tricks at any more risk than she already is.

  I shake my head. “I took a walk down to the marine amphitheater to clear my head.”

  “Let me guess. Alone?” Lemming asks with disbelief written in his beady, little eyes. He may not believe me, but it’s almost like he wants to the way he leans in and hopefully awaits my answer.

  I nod and stub out my smoke, immediately lighting another. “Yep. All alone.”

  He sighs. “So, what you’re saying is that you can’t account for your whereabouts during the time of the murder. As for your Los Muertos angle, there isn’t a single person who saw Marcos Ramos in attendance. They all said that he sent a proxy. Some girl with curly blonde hair who left right around the time you went to get some air. You think she could have something to do with this?” Lemming asks.

  I try my best to sound disinterested. “Nah, she was just some hang-around he sent to disrespect Belly’s service instead of showing his ugly face. I saw the girl. She was young. Skinny. Too frail to have the kind of power it takes to shove a knife into someone’s skull.”

  “And how would you know that?” he asks.

  “Discovery Channel,” I deadpan.

  “The facts and evidence are against you, Grim.” Lemming stands up and takes his file with him. Two officers come in and unlock my cuffs from the table, grabbing me under my arms to stand me up. “Throw him in a cell until his lawyer gets here,” he orders.

  “I didn’t do this.”

  “Oh, you didn’t? Well, okay, then just put your bags with the concierge at the front desk, and we’ll have your car waiting at valet.”

  “You don’t understand,” I say, rubbing my eyes. I’ve got to get to Tricks.

  “Then, tell me so that I can understand,” he says.

  “I can’t, but it’s important I get out.” I meet his eyes. “More important than all of this. Than anything.”

  He places his index finger against his lips. “I think you’re underestimating how important a murder one charge is.”

  The officers shuffle me to the door. Lemming leans against the wall in the hallway. “You better think long and hard about taking the rap for murder one because it won’t just be you and your family going down. With Belly gone, it’ll be the end of Bedlam.”

  Lemming is right. If and when it comes down to making the choice, I’ll take the rap for all of it. That was never even a question. The real issue is how the hell I’m going to save Bedlam and Tricks from inside a motherfucking jail cell.

  I’m relieved of my cuffs and pushed into a cell. It’s one of those modern ones with no bars. Instead, thick plastic glass separates the free from the captive. The them from the me.

  My rage boils to the surface and explodes. I pound my head against the glass over and over again. The first layer cracks. I ball my fists at my sides and keep pounding as the crack grows larger and larger.

  “Let me the fuck out of here!” I scream. Blood blurs my vision. I don’t give a shit. They can’t keep me from Tricks. No one can. Not anymore. We’re magnets always being pulled together. Sturdier than cell glass. Stronger than any chain.

  Deadlier than any bullet.

  Nine

  When my lawyer arrives, she finds me pacing my cell like the caged animal I am.

  Bethany Fletcher drove all the way from Coral Pines to represent me. However, she doesn’t look as if she’s just spent three hours in a car. Her fancy red suit doesn’t have a crease on it. Her dark hair has waves of silver thrown into the mix. Her lips and nails match the red of her suit. She’s a smart woman, calculating, cool and polished. She’s older, almost grandmotherly-looking but is as ruthless as they come. I don’t just mean as far as lawyers go.

  I mean as far as anyone goes.

  She’s also willing to travel outside of the lines of both law and decency to protect her clients. Sometimes, she veers so far outside the lines, she falls off the fucking map. Which is exactly why she’s Bedlam’s lawyer.

  There’s nothing I can tell her, nothing that I’ve done or plan to do, that will elicit a reaction from her other than a discussion or idea on how she’s going to help fix it.

  Which is another reason why she’s my lawyer.

  Bethany sits down next to me on the bench in my cell and gives me a simple nod to begin.

  I give her the gist. Not the shit in the police reports, which I’m sure she’s read three times over already. The real story, including the part where I need to get out and get to Tricks. She only writes down what’s legal and relevant to my case and files the rest in her brain for later use.

  Bethany straightens her posture. “I’ll see what I can do. I don’t know what that is just yet, but if there’s something, anything. I’ll do it,” she says.

  “I know that. Thanks, Bethany.”

  She nods, and shifts uncomfortably under the weight of my appreciation. “I’ve already talked to Marci and the boys. They’re fine and all together in a holding room on the other side of the building. I’m assuming they’ve separated you from them because of the capital murder charge. You’ll be glad to know that none of them have said a word to anyone and won’t until I tell them they can and more importantly, what it is they should say.” Bethany twists her lips. “Although Haze did open his mouth to crack a joke to an officer about his lazy eye and got himself a shiner for it.”

  She stands from the cell bench beside me and tucks her notepad into her briefcase although she didn’t write anything down that I said. I think the pad is more for show than anything.

  “I’ll make some calls and find out who the arraignment judge will be, and more importantly, what kind of skeletons they might be hiding in their locked closet of justice.” She looks down at her shining silver watch. “I’ve got to get moving. We’ve got less than three hours.” Her eyes meet mine. “I know you know this, but I’m going to say it anyway. Wait for me to come back. Don’t agree to anything stupid because Lemming pressures you. Don’t play hero and take the wrap for all this shit until I’m one hundred percent positive it’s the last and only option. Because it never is. Do you understand what I’m saying? It NEVER is.”

  I nod in understanding. Bethany’s up to something, but I know better than to ask about something she isn’t freely telling me. If she’s withholding information, there’s a reason. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Bethany smoothes down her skirt and pulls her phone from her bag. She’s already barking orders into the receiver as an officer opens the cel
l for her. “I need the name of the judge presiding over tomorrow morning’s seven a.m. arraignment in the Lacking County Courthouse. And I need you to call our friend for intel. See what he can dig up on…”

  Her voice trails off as she walks away, her heels clacking against the linoleum until the chime above the station door rings and any sound of her presence is gone.

  The cell door is about to close again when Agent Lemming appears and pushes it back open, stepping inside with the same file from earlier. “Reach any conclusions with your lawyer?”

  “Yeah, that you’re a fucking prick,” I say.

  “Nothing I already don’t know.” He takes out a handkerchief from his pocket and tosses it on my lap. “For your head.”

  At first, I’m confused until Lemming points to my forehead, and I remember the blood from banging my head against the glass. I’m not surprised that Bethany didn’t ask about it. Concern isn’t her style.

  I hold the cloth against my wound, looking up at Lemming from under the fabric. “You here to play nurse, or you got something to actually say?”

  He opens the file and pulls out a series of blown-up black and white pictures from a surveillance camera with last night’s date stamped on the upper right corner. “Could she be the reason you think you were set up? If you were set up?” he amends.

  I look down at the first photo. It’s of the marine amphitheater, and it’s empty. I look up to Agent Lemming, and he nods for me to continue. I flip to the next one. It’s of Tricks, looking out over the water. The next one is me. I go from one picture to the next. It’s like one of those old-school, animated flip books, retelling the events of exactly what happened between me and Tricks right up until we kiss and disappear into the shadows, only to emerge again twenty minutes later and leave separately.

  “I assume by the curly hair that this is Marco’s rep. The one you were so quick to dismiss as a likely suspect?”

  “Didn’t want some girl being blamed for shit I know she didn’t do just because I wanted to get my dick wet.”

  “But she’s the only one who can give you an alibi, and yet you decided not to name her as the person you were with?”

  I shrug.

  “Why do you care about what happens to some Los Muertos whore?”

  My eye twitches with the repressed need to correct him by way strangulation.

  He takes the pictures from my hand and holds one out for me to look at again. It’s me and Tricks wrapped up in a kiss I can still feel on my lips, still taste on my tongue.

  “Not to be racist about it, but she doesn’t look like she belongs to Los Muertos. Unless they’ve started recruiting white chicks? I haven’t seen a single girl working the streets for them who looks like this, and believe me, at some point, I’ve seen and questioned them all.” He flips the picture back to me and takes another look at it. “This doesn’t look like some casual fucking encounter, either. This looks like…more.”

  Because it is more.

  “You’re just seeing what you want to see,” I say.

  Lemming glances at the photo. “You know, I’ve had my fair share of one-nighters. Some I even paid for, way back before I got into law enforcement. And I can honestly tell you that sticking your dick in a club whore and kissing them like are two very very different things.”

  I say nothing.

  He tucks the pictures back in the file. “Who is she?” he asks.

  Still, I say nothing.

  “Well, if you want to play that game, maybe you’ll be more interested in this one,” Lemming says, placing another sheet of paper in front of me. It’s a toxicology report. Belly’s toxicology report.

  “What the fuck is this?” I ask.

  “It’s a love note,” Agent Lemming deadpans.

  “Fuck you,” I say, slinging the paper back to him. He catches it and holds it up, pointing at a column that reads 220% after some scientific jargon. “And that’s supposed to mean?”

  “It isn’t supposed to mean anything. It means that Belly’s heart was recovering quite well after his surgery and that he was expected to make a full recovery.”

  “What are you getting at Lemming,” I demand. “Spit it the fuck out.”

  “Belly didn’t die of a heart condition. He was murdered.”

  Ten

  Dear God,

  I don’t know how to pray. I don’t even know if you are real or some over-the-top fairytale created to tell children so they wouldn’t stay up late at night worrying about what happens to us after we die. Which is what I’m contemplating now. Or rather, not what happens after I die but how to prevent my death. You see, it’s not the survival of my own body that I’m thinking about, but the lives and bodies of those I love. And I have to be alive in order to save them.

  My desperation has led me to this prayer, but since I have no clue how to get this message to you or what hand signals I’m supposed to use to get it started, I’m composing my prayer in letter format in my head.

  Forgive me for lacking formality as I’m currently tied and bound and do not have access to the use of my extremities, never mind pen or paper. Even if I was able to write it down and address it to you, I imagine that the post office won’t send me a letter back signed by God as they do with Santa Claus come Christmastime.

  This may only be a thought of a letter, but I hope it reaches you nonetheless.

  Wherever you are.

  If you are.

  I’ve heard that we are all your children, probably on TV somewhere or in a book. But if that’s true, then it’s a good thing. Because in this moment I’ve never felt more like a child, not even when I was one did I ever feel this helpless.

  Useless.

  Hope has poisoned me. I’m both tainted and cleansed by love. I’ve never hated clarity more because with clarity comes the reality that this will all end with suffering. My body isn’t my worry. I can take the pain. It’s the suffering of my heart I can’t bear. Because if anything happens to Grim or Gabby, it will be that very kind of suffering that will stop my heart from beating. It will be my true end. I can’t survive their loss. I can’t live in this world, knowing that the only two people I’ve ever loved are no longer in it.

  I don’t know how negotiations work with you, but I’d like to propose a deal if you’re up for it.

  Protect them. Please. Just until I can figure a way out of here. And I promise that I will handle it from there. In return, I can’t promise much. I can’t tell you that I will live a life devoted to you or that I will read The Bible beginning to end every day.

  False promises are lies, even if you mean them, and although it’s my specialty, lying right now wouldn’t be beneficial to you accepting this deal. Besides, I’ll need every single one in my power to get me past the Los Muertos gates.

  What I can promise is that if you protect them, I will love them with all that I am. I will not grow bitter with hatred or revenge. I will love harder. Stronger. Until my very last breath. It’s this love, the overwhelming, consuming, erratic kind I have for Grim and Gabby, that will lead me to do some things I’m sure will disappoint you. But it is love. It is more powerful than hate.

  Right now, it’s all I have.

  Protect them until I can.

  Please.

  Sincerely Yours,

  Emma Jean Parish

  * * *

  I’m brought out of my mental prayer by a tugging at my arms.

  I glance up. My vision focus’s on an unwelcome face.

  Mona.

  She unties my wrists, and I instinctually rub at my aching limbs. She throws me some clothes. My own clothes. She must have sent someone to the apartment. I push through the pain and toss my favorite anarchy tank over my head and pull on my denim cutoffs. It feels amazing to be dressed again although the soft fabric feels like sandpaper against my bruises. I find a hair tie in the pocket of my shorts, and its sweet relief to pull my curls off my face and into a quick bun at the nape of my neck.

  “Why are you doing this?” I
ask.

  “What?” she asks as if she has no clue what I’m talking about.

  “Helping me. Hurting me. Both. Why are you letting him do this to me?”

  “Me? Allowing this?” Mona shakes her head and wags her index finger at me. “This is on you. This is what spies get when they’re caught. Marco thinks of himself as a king, and you’ve committed the worst crime of all. Treason.”

  I shake my head. “No. I was doing what Marco asked me to do. I was getting close to Bedlam. Getting information on his behalf. To accomplish that I had to gain trust. Get close. I was a spy but not for Bedlam. For Los Muertos. For Marco.” The lie flows easily. I’ve had a few days to think about it and not much else.

  “Bullshit! What about the bus tickets you were caught with? You were trying to leave. To escape. Was that for the good of Los Muertos? For Marco?”

  “Did you see the bus tickets?” I ask.

  Mona pauses. “No. But...”

  “Then, you didn’t see the destination,” I say. “You don’t know where we were going.”

  “Why would I need to see where you were running?” Mona asks with a roll of her eyes.

  “Because, then you would know that we weren’t running away. Marco wouldn’t let Gabby come see you, but she missed you. She didn’t want you to come here and see what we were subjected to because she didn’t want you to worry or get involved and wind up here yourself. We weren’t escaping. We were coming to visit you.”

  It was sort of true. When I bought the tickets, I chose Coral Pines where Mona went to school. I knew how much Gabby missed Mona, and I knew Gabby would want to warn her away from Marco in person. That plus, it was literally the only other city where we knew someone.

  Mona looks at me silently, and for a brief moment, her features soften. The lines on her forehead smooth out. The purse of her pale pink lips straightens. It’s only a second, but it’s all I need to know that I’ve gotten to her before her scowl again takes hold and the lines are locked back in place.