Текст книги "If You Dare"

Автор книги: Alessandra Torre

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

CHAPTER 60

Present

I ASSUMED, WITH a verbal and written confession, that the judicial process was, for the most part, over. That there will be some minor sentencing hearing, where the judge will pass over my sentence, then I will start my jail time.

I am wrong.

The process, explained to me by a large, dark woman who smells of lilacs, is for me to be booked first. A prosecutor will, within the next three days, decide what charges will be filed against me. Then I’ll have an arraignment in court, where I will have the chance to plead guilty or not guilty. At the arraignment, my bail will be set or denied. I nod as she speaks, sign and initial when requested, and assist as best I can during the fingerprinting process. She asks me to step up to a black background and look at the camera. I stare into its eye, such a familiar eye, and wonder, in the second before the flash hits, when I will next cam. The possibility suddenly strikes that I may never cam again. I stare into its dark center. A Canon. I have a Canon. I had a Canon. In low light, when I moved quickly, it sometimes blurred. I am not in low lighting now. And I am still. Very still. Does one smile in their mug shot? I feel suddenly like Ben Affleck in Gone Girl, the desire to produce a crooked smile maddeningly irresistible.

“Sit down on the chair and remove those shoes.”

And my photo time is over. I sit down and stare at the black backdrop. Black draws light. Before I got ten thousand watts pumping in my apartment, I had black sheets on my pink bed. It lit my body, brightened my screen, almost better than the bulbs. I wonder if my skin glowed in the mug shot, if the black drew in the flash and distracted the viewer from my flaws. I may never again see my lights, my bulbs, my room. I may never again see my fans, my clients, my world. I may never again be Jess Reilly.

I sit down. Lean forward and pull at the laces of my tennis shoes. Pick at a knot, my mind going white and blank. Forget the pink bedroom. Forget my online world. This is the first step of the rest of my life. This is my new reality, and it is good and just. I think of the first crime scene photo, the reflective sheen, Jeremy’s eyes closed. I shouldn’t have called the hospital. I didn’t deserve an update; I didn’t deserve to introduce myself to his sister and to know about his status. I tugged the tongue of my sneaker out and worked the Nike over my heel, pulling my foot free and setting the shoe down, moving to the second. It comes quicker, and I scoop up them both and set them on my knees, looking up.

The woman holds out a hand, her nails long and bright blue against her chocolate skin. I pass over the shoes and she tilts her head. Studies me for a long beat. “You scared, honey?”

“At what?”

She chortles. “Jail. Prison. Loss of Freedom.”

Ha. Scared? That thought hasn’t even crossed my mind. Stir crazy? Probably. “No.” How sweet of her to ask.

“You know, you’re not like most of the girls in there.” She tosses her head back, in the general direction of the jail. I shrug. Fitting in hasn’t exactly been a concern of late.

She leans forward, lowering her voice. “Want some advice?” I don’t. “Don’t stick out. Cute little white girl like you will attract attention. You’re going to have to deal with some roughhousing. Just keep your head down and color, you got me?”

I lean in, matching her pose, our two heads almost touching over the counter. “I gotcha,” I whisper.

She sits back like she doesn’t want to swap spit with a prisoner, swiveling her large body left and groaning as she bends at the waist and shoves to her feet. She moves to the door and waves at me. “Come on.” I rise and follow, my socks hitting the smooth floor. Thank God I wore socks. She points to a white door. “In there.”

Come on.

In there.

I come. I go in. She follows me into the room and shuts the door. “There’s a camera up there.” She points to the ceiling and I glance up, into a black curved piece of glass. “I got to search you now,” her mouth turns down at the edges. “Everywhere. You understand?”

I nod. I understand. I pull Marilyn off my torso and unclip my bra, letting it fall down my arms. I unbuckle my jeans and sit on a plastic chair, working them over my hips and down my thighs. The room is quiet, the woman’s breath soft, my own silent. Just the sounds of approaching nudity. No one has ever touched my skin, save Jeremy. I glance at the woman and her eyes are kind. She thinks the nudity bothers me. Ha.

I pull down my underwear and pull off my socks. Stand before her and spread my arms. “Go for it.”

She is brisk and efficient, her latex-gloved hands skimming over my arms, shoulders, breasts. She picks through my hair, checks my ears, mouth, and throat. She asks me to lift one leg and I do. She pushes two fingers inside and I close my eyes. Turn around and feel the spread of my cheeks. I’d have let her fist it if she’d ended the exam with a hug. That was what, right now, I really wanted. A hug. She had asked me if I was scared. I am not scared; there is nothing inside of these walls that can hurt me. I am more afraid of what is in me that can hurt others.

She steps away and I lose the connection. Turns her back and I hear the snap of her gloves being pulled off. “You’re clean. You can get dressed.”

I look at my collapsed pile of clothes. “Back in those?”

“Yep. You’ll stay in those until after the arraignment.” The arraignment isn’t until Tuesday. A long time to wear used underwear. I reach for the bra and T-shirt. Slide quick legs through the panties and jeans and pull them on. I take the shoes she passes me and sit in the chair.

“Anything in your pockets?”

I move forward and slide my hand into my back pocket. These jeans. I used to wear them once a week. Ice cream and lotto. That was when I was being stupid, when I thought I could rule the world because I was happy and in love. I pull out the last thing I put in there. A lotto ticket and my change. Funny that I never pulled them out, never washed these jeans. They’ve sat, folded in my closet, like a dead child’s preserved room, a memory of a life past lived. I look at the date of the ticket, almost five months old. Has it really been five months since I jogged down those stairs and crossed the street? Five months since I pushed on that door and had an interaction with the cashier? I pull the change out and count the bills. I’d supercharged the ticket, upping it from one dollar to two, wild woman that I was. And I must have, on that day, skipped ice cream, because eighteen dollars even unfolds. I skipped ice cream. That thought hits hard. I hadn’t known that it would be my last night, hadn’t known that Mike would call and things would go to hell and I’d have a lot bigger thing on my plate than cold delicacies. I hadn’t known that, after that weekend, I’d change my habits completely. Withdraw. Put FtypeBaby in park and leave her alone. Settle into a cocoon of myself and hope the wrap of thin fibers kept me still. After that weekend, I hadn’t allowed myself to leave the house. Not until that run last week. That grocery store trip. Then my drive to Jeremy’s house. And look, now he’s almost dead and I’m in a police station. So there. My cautiousness, my rules, my boundaries: justified. And it only took Jeremy dying to get me here. Almost dying. Not yet dead.

The woman’s nails rattle against the counter and I push the cash forward. She counts out the money, blue nails fanning through the air like rainbows. “Eighteen dollars,” she announces. “I’ll put it under your name; when you get transferred it’ll go in your canteen account.” Eighteen dollars sounds like a small amount. What will I be able to buy in prison with eighteen dollars? From her expression, not a lot. She stacks the bills and puts them into an envelope. “Next time you get a visitor, have them put more in your account.” She says the words matter-of-factly, like my stream of visitors will be frequent and may start any minute. I chew on my bottom lip, the fat muscle thick between my teeth, and say nothing. I will have no visitors. Of that, I’m certain.

CHAPTER 61

Present

I DON’T LIKE it.” Detective Brenda Boles sucks a sip of coffee between her teeth, the wet sound of it conjuring up an image of brown-stained dental diagrams. She sets down the cup. Damn her dentist and his posters, cheerfully tacked up on walls, like anyone really wants to stare at gingivitis when getting their incisors scraped.

“Don’t say that.” David leans back in his chair, the front foot of it lifting up.

“You agree. You know you do.” He better. Otherwise their whole camaraderie, the connection between them formed when two individuals share the same air for a decade, would be reduced to shit. Hell, a rookie could figure out right now that something smells wrong, the girl folding over so easily. Something changed in her eyes during the last hour, a glaze settling in at times, her mind taking her somewhere that was not the room, was not the questioning. Where had she gone? And what had she seen, in that place, to cause her to open her mouth and spew out that bullshit confession?

David’s phone rings and he shifts, reaching a hand into the front pocket. “Reuber,” he barks. She listens, his grunts and mutters the type that traditionally lead to answers.

When he hangs up, she pounces. “What?”

“Jeremy Pacer’s house exploded six months ago. He was supposed to still be in it. Barely escaped alive.”

“How are we just now finding out about this?”

“The house was in his grandmother’s name, over in Prestwick. He was looked at as more of a tenant; the case was determined, after speaking to Pacer, to be a home invasion gone wrong. They broke in, found nothing, and torched the place in retribution.”

“Home invasions hitting Prestwick now?” Brenda asks skeptically.

He shrugs. “Blanchard and Jones took it.” And that is all he needs to say. Two cops months from retirement. They probably didn’t even ride out to the scene. She stands.

“Wanting to talk to Tom now?” He looks at the clock.

“Might as well. Could be a second attempted murder tacked onto Madden.”

“Could be a coincidence.” He holds the door open for her and she pauses, looking into his face.

“It’s not a coincidence.”

“Then why are you scowling?”

“Because something is wrong. I just don’t know what it is.”

“You know that three hours ago you were gunning for this girl with everything you had, right?”

She steps into the hall and moves toward the DA’s office with purpose. “Yeah, well. Then she confessed.”

CHAPTER 62

Present

I AM PUT in a cell with four others. They are spread out over a room with six beds, two of them clearly unused, both top bunks. I guess there is a point in life when you quit fighting over the top bunk, and prison age seems to be it. I step inside the door, am asked to turn, provide my wrists, and they unlock my cuffs. Freedom. I rub my wrists and watch the door behind me slide shut. Not free. I put my hand on the metal and stare through the window. On the other side, the guard’s impassive face looks away, calls something to the other guard, and laughs. I take a step back and turn to the room.

All four faces stare at me, slack and expressionless, as if the prison walls have sucked out their souls.

I smile. No one returns the gesture.

My lack of interaction with the outside world has spoiled me to how annoying others are. Here, in a cell in booking, we are all waiting for our arraignment, or bail to post, or for a transport. A marathon before us of nothingness, no books, no magazines, no TV to break up the monotony. I lay in a top bunk against the wall and listen to things that annoy me.

The woman below me cracks her knuckles.

The woman standing paces, each step of her tennis shoes making a sucking sound that reminds me exactly how dirty this floor must be.

The woman in a chair, seated by the door, talks to anyone who will listen. She is here because some sumbitch at work jacked her wallet and got what he deserved. That confuses me, since in an earlier piece of the monologue, she rattled out that she works at her neighbor’s house and takes care of a bunch of asshole kids. I close my eyes and picture the scenario. Kids. Sumbitches. Getting what is deserved.

No one, other than the sumbitch-getting woman by the door, has said anything to me. Which is a good thing, since I am too brittle right now. I feel as if my life has worn through my skin, like the skin has gotten thin and deteriorated, my elbows and hips beginning to poke through, the entire experience of the last two days a pressure cooker on my body, the air getting hotter and hotter, Jeremy getting farther and farther, the skin cooking like bacon under the heat, those worn edges curling up, the surface one hard push away from breaking open, my soul easing out like red-hot lava. If you poke, I will break. If I break, hell will pour out and I will not be able to get it back in.

I am just four hours in and I hate this place. Which feels familiar. Which feels right.

“Here’s the key. Dumpster downstairs empties on Thursdays, and is normally filled by Tuesday, so get your trash down early. Mailman comes in the afternoon, if you got anything to go out, have it in the box by noon.” He rubbed at his nose, and a line of snot got smeared. I looked away. Trash? I hadn’t even thought about that. Mail? Would I need to mail something? How would I do that?

“The utilities are already hooked up?” I was beginning to panic, I could feel the push of anxious blood, moving to my head and starting a mosh pit there.

“Yeah. You know…” He smiled and I saw a piece of pepper stuck in his teeth. “I’m right downstairs. If you need anything, you just swing by.”

I nodded. I will not be swinging by. I will have to learn to not need anything. He had no idea, but this is the last time I intended on speaking to him.

He reached for the door and palmed the steel for a minute, testing it. When he turned back, he and the piece of pepper smiled at me again. “It was smart, getting a new door. You know I’ve been here three years and you’re the only one who’s had the door replaced? First off, I mean. Doors get broken all the time, need replacing. But no one ever uses a door like this.” He knocked on the surface. “This thing is serious. Who you trying to keep out?”

I met his curious gaze and shook my head. “No one.”

No one. Keeping out wasn’t the intent. The door was for one purpose. To keep myself in.

I shut the door behind him and palmed the key. Walked to the center of the empty apartment and looked around. Too big for me, it dwarfed the size of my dorm room. Yet, when I looked at the space and thought about FOREVER, it seemed entirely too small. One year, I decided. I would stay in this place for one year. By then I’d come to grips with who I was. By then I’d figure out whether I was crazy or going through a phase. By then I would find myself again, and she and I would move on to the next phase of our lives. A good plan. I just, looking at empty cabinets, a lone mattress on the floor, boxes stacked with a hundred cute outfits yet nothing helpful to a recluse… I just needed to learn how to live it. I pulled my laptop from my bag and sat on the floor. Logged in and found an unsecured Wi-Fi connection close by. Brought up my bank’s website and entered my credentials. Stared, for the hundredth time, at the low balance.

Correction: I need to learn how to live as a recluse and make money. Feed myself. Devise a way to keep myself inside no matter what.

It would be hard, I knew that. I’d be poor, I understood that. But, if this plan worked, at least I’d know that others were safe.

I stared at the door and already wanted to go out. One year. How would I ever make it?

I had moved into apartment 6E as such a confused girl. There had been early nights when I had scraped holes in plaster, had screamed myself to sleep, not necessarily from the crazy, but from the solitude. From the realization that I was stuck there, staring at those walls, all by myself. For a nineteen-year-old girl used to parties and normality, it was terrifying.

I stare at the ceiling now and think of the day I first logged on. When I first became Jess Reilly. Dr. Derek would have a field day with that transition. Would say I was sliding into the skin of my old life, playing house to fool my mind into thinking that everything was all right. And maybe that’s what I’ve been doing every day since. Maybe that’s why the thought of leaving camming, of leaving JessReilly19, is so terrifying. Maybe Jess Reilly has been the only thing keeping me sane this entire time.

I laugh and SumbitchWoman looks over at me, her jaw flapping shut. Sane. Is that what I think I’ve been? I sit up, rolling my legs off the side of the bed and speak to no one in particular. “Will they let me make a phone call?”

Beneath me a woman’s face appears, white and pasty, her eyes mean, the folds of her eyelids cupping the hatred into place. This woman could smile, every piece of her face cooperating, and those eyes would still scream hate. “Shut it,” she snarls, and her voice matches her eyes, the vowels asphalt black and scratchy, the next words harder to hear because I choose that moment to lift my foot up and smash it down onto her face.

I don’t know why I did it. I’ve been told to shut up before. A hundred times, in fact. And this woman is no doubt stronger, wiser than me. She has to know people, have family who know people, has to have a hundred advantages over me in this space. What was it that other woman had said? Right before she bent me over and pushed her fingers inside? Keep your head down and color. That was it. I keep my head down as I push off the bunk, the howling woman’s eyes following me from her position on the ground where my kick put her. One of my shoes landed on an outstretched hand, her scream almost loud enough to hide the crunch of her bones. Hand bones are so, so delicate. I color across her face with my heel as I give one last relatively gentle kick. I step off and away, moving forward, my view of her disappearing, the scrabble of her nails on this dirty floor the sound of a woman trying to get up. I hope she does. I hope she stands and brings that broken face closer. I hope she lunges out with that destroyed hand. I hope she tries to kick my ass. Really. Please.

I try again. “Will they let me make a phone call?”

SumbitchWoman just stares at me. I watch her jaw move, but nothing comes out. Finally, there is a wheeze of a breath from behind and I turn, looking past MeanEyes, her good hand pushing on the ground, her other lifted to her cheek, pain behind the blood on her face, a gash open on her right cheek, her nose similar to mine yet a hell of a lot worse. The fourth woman, her knees spread unladylike, her heavy girth comforting, the elbow she places on her knee thick and fat. “You could ask them,” she huffs, her words hard and heavy, the effort made not lost on me, and I smile in thanks as I turn.

Oh, them. Three black uniforms at our door, one barking into a chest walkie, one unlocking the door, the other standing, eyes bouncing across the room, collecting details like trading cards. I walk to the door and wait for it to open. I speak to the only one who doesn’t seem busy. “I’d like to make a phone call.” I smile politely.

My smile must be broken, because in this place, no one yet has smiled back.

CHAPTER 63

Present

THE BEAUTY OF confessions is that they are one checkmark made. One task completed. One less case in a caseload of hundreds. Jeremy Pacer was avenged. When he, if he, wakes up, he will be happy to know that his attacker is behind bars. Brenda Boles can go on with her life and have one less blood-spattered crime scene to think about.

A confession. Beautiful. Except in this case, when it is not.

“I know that look.” David stops before her desk, and she lifts her eyes.

“No you don’t.” He’s holding two bananas. She reaches for one; he holds it out of reach. “No.”

“You’re telling me you’re eating both of those?”

“Mattie says I need more potassium in my diet.”

“Bullshit. You’re punishing me.”

“Damn right I’m punishing you. We closed a case, she’s been booked, we’re supposed to be celebrating over something fried and delicious right now.”

“You’re the one with the bananas.”

“And you’re the one with that damn look on your face.” He sits down in the chair of the closest desk. “What is it? Is it the Henderson audio? ’Cause I told you the judge would—”

“No,” she interrupts shortly. “It’s Madden. The confession.”

He frowns. “What’s your beef with that?”

“It’s wrong.”

“But you said—”

“She’s guilty but it’s wrong.”

He sighs and sets down both bananas. Her eyes follow them. The shit thing of it is, she doesn’t even really like bananas. Yet withhold one and she’s drooling all over the place. “Then we dig into the explosion. Go over it too.”

“You know she only called one person? During her phone calls? One.” She holds up a finger and David nods.

“Yes, I know, you told me. The hospital.”

“The hospital. She didn’t even know what happened to him till we told her.”

“So she’s blocked it out. It’s traumatizing to try and kill someone.” He shrugs. Peels open his banana. She follows suit.

“I called booking. To get an update.”

“And?”

“Waiting on a call back.”

“It’s booking. She’s sitting in a cell trying not to get her white ass kicked. What are you expecting them to say?”

She takes a bite of banana. Too ripe. She eyes his. It looks better. “Maybe we should call the shrink.”

“For what?”

She has a sudden recollection of his voice, the comforting drawl in the tones, the way his voice had changed when she’d said Deanna Madden’s name. “An update. Let him know his client has been charged.”

“He’s a shrink, what does he care? She’s probably one of five hundred patients.”

She pushes a boot on the edge of a file cabinet and swings the chair around. “He’ll care.”

“Then call him, let him know, and move the hell on.”

Her fingers peel back the rest of the skin and toss it in the wastebasket. “I will,” she says, pushing the final piece of fruit in her mouth. Spinning the chair straight, she reaches for the phone, brushing off her other hand before snagging the correct case file and flipping it open.

Dialing the number, she settles back in her chair and listens to the ring. Flosses her teeth with the edge of her nail. When the man comes on the line, she straightens.

“Dr. Vanderbilt?”

“Yes, is this Detective Boles?”

Oh, goody. He remembers her. “I’m calling about Deanna Madden. She’s been arrested.”