by Karr, Kim
Quietly, I tiptoed down the hallway. The house was old, but all the rooms had been remodeled with a distinguished elegance. Michael had owned the house for a few years and although I’d never asked, I was certain it had been decorated before my sister moved in. With its parquet wood floors, white walls, and different shades of blues throughout, it looked like something out of Martha’s Vineyard.
My sister had been more wild child. The sixties “peace, love, not war” was her philosophy. Her drug use went along with her disposition. It was just who she was. How she rebelled, I used to think, but maybe it was more how she coped.
As I passed Heidi’s former room, something about its disarray caught my attention. This room had navy drapes and a white bedspread with blue doves embroidered all over it. It was typically kept neat, as was every room in the house. Today it was anything but. The bed was unmade and the blue-and-white striped carpet was thrown back. I found that strange.
Inside the room, it was apparent that Heidi had left in a hurry. The drawers were all pulled open. And as I glanced around, everything seemed slightly disheveled—not just the rug or the dressers, or the bed, but the closet door was wide open, with hangers on the floor.
I kicked the rug back into place, and that’s when I saw a yellow piece of paper in the wastebasket. It was from the type of pad Michael used all the time. With a quick glance behind me to make certain I was still alone, I uncrumpled it. It read, Pick one. Below those words was a web address: www.evanmarks.com.
That was all.
I’d never heard of the site.
Didn’t know what it meant.
But I’d seen the words before in Michael’s ex-secretary’s drawer.
I was curious and continued to glance around looking for something else.
Footfalls on the stairs alerted me that Michael was coming up. Tossing the paper back into the trash, I began to straighten the bed.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I pretended to be startled and grabbed my chest. “Oh, you scared me. Sorry, my OCD kicked in. Heidi seems to have left a mess. I thought I’d straighten up a bit.”
Michael stepped inside the room and glanced around.
My heart was pounding.
His eyes landed on me, and for a moment I thought he might have seen how perplexed I was by the way Heidi had cleared her things out, but then he shoved a drawer closed. “She wasn’t the neatest houseguest.”
I tugged the corner of the bedspread. “No, she wasn’t.”
He was behind me, his arms around me reaching for the spread. “Another reason she didn’t work out,” he whispered in my ear.
I smelled liquor on his breath. Images of my father came to mind, and I tried not to shudder as I ducked out from under his body and made my way to the other side of the bed to straighten it.
Michael walked toward the door and stopped just short of it. He held out his hand. “Come on, dinner’s ready.”
After a few seconds of silence, I stepped toward the dresser, not him. “Let me just finish.”
He let his extended hand drop. “Traci will take care of this mess when she comes on Monday. You know she lives for cleaning.”
Even though I forced myself to laugh, he wasn’t wrong. Traci, Michael’s housekeeper, certainly did love to clean. She spent more time here than she needed to. I think she preferred to be here during the day than at home. Her husband worked long hours and she was home alone a lot.
Michael stood at the door and waited for me to pass him. As soon as I did, he closed the door behind me. “Did she go down okay?”
The hallway was wide. Shaped like a square, it had six doors. Four were for the bedrooms, each with its own bathroom; another led to the attic, and the last to a terrace that overlooked the backyard. I glanced toward Clementine’s room. “She was exhausted. Poor little thing fell right to sleep.”
“I thought she might. Erin didn’t give her much of a nap.” His hand went to the small of my back as he guided me toward the stairs I needed no help locating.
Each step I took, it remained in place. By the time I got to the first step, I considered grasping the doorknob to the attic because the walls were beginning to blend into the floors. I wondered how much longer I could hold my breath.
The answer came soon enough when his hands shifted. “You feel so tight.”
My breath was still in my lungs.
His fingers began massaging into the knots that had to be spreading throughout my entire back by now. This was the time to tell him to please keep his hands off me. That I wasn’t interested in him in any way other than as a friend. Yet, I knew I had to be careful. Do it with tact. He held my future with his daughter in those hands.
“Michael,” I tossed over my shoulder, very unsure of what I was going to say and how I was going to tell him that not only was my heart in a thousand shattered pieces right now, but I wasn’t the least bit attracted to him.
The smell of something burning wafted through the air and had him rushing by. “Shit, I must have left the rice on.”
Relief whooshed through me.
I was wrong—things weren’t back to normal between us.
A very unsavory feeling struck when I began to fear this might just be the new normal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DAY 32
LOGAN
It was hard not to wonder what would have happened.
If I hadn’t gone to the beach that day twelve years ago, if Emily hadn’t looked so innocent wearing shorts and a T-shirt when all the other girls were wearing bikinis, if I would have left when the guys wanted to leave, or if I would have just listened to them and not gone after her.
The problem was, in the parallel version of my life, everything would be different. I probably would have ended up like most of the guys I went to prep school with, James excluded. Unhappily married with two small kids, having dreams about girls on their knees and blow jobs that never came, and then waking up next to a Stepford wife in training who closed her vagina after her last pregnancy.
In this alternate future, I wouldn’t be sitting here staring up at the green-painted steel frame of an empty bunk in a place that smelled like perspiration and disinfectant for two fucking nights wondering about what might have been.
I also wouldn’t have met Elle.
So fuck the might-have-beens.
Deal with it, McPherson, I found myself saying. I was talking to myself now. But then again I had no idea how long they were going to keep me, and I had to find a way to keep my sanity because I really felt like I was going insane.
It’s not as if I didn’t know the law inside and out. I was well aware of my rights. None of that mattered in here, though. I was stuck with no communication to the outside world and no one knew where the fuck I was. I was about ready to lose my mind. I wanted to claw my way out of here so I could get to Elle. I couldn’t even think about what must be going through her head.
The South Bay House of Correction was a place I’d been to almost as many times as the Nashua Street Jail, yet I never knew they had an isolation wing for possible terrorist-linked inmates.
And here I sat.
Minutes ticked by.
Hours.
Days.
It had to be Monday morning by now. How much longer were they going to keep me here? The weekend was one thing, but how could they keep me under wraps during the week? Then again, I was in isolation in some unknown wing God knew where deep within the prison walls.
I closed my eyes and tried to push the ache in my heart out of my mind. I had to think. Use my head to get them to let me use a phone. Bribe the guards if I had to. Patrick’s goon squad had to be off duty by now. I might have a chance with a new crew.
“McPherson,” one of the guards called as he opened the door. “Get up.”
I did. I was done resisting. It wasn’t getting me anywhere.
Sure enough, new guards had taken over and none of them seemed to know or care who I was. They were just doing t
heir job. I did the best I could to be whatever the hell it was I was supposed to be.
I was led down a hall, through a number of doors, around a corner, and through another door. It had taken two days, but I was finally sitting in the attorney’s room. The problem with this little scenario is that I had yet to be allowed to make a phone call.
A quick glance in the mirrored window told me I looked like shit. I ran a hand over the top of my head. The sons of bitches in processing decided to shave it before taking my mug shot. The ones in holding complained I was mouthing back, so my black eye was owed to that. But none of that mattered. What mattered was the tightness I felt in my chest because I hadn’t been able to contact Elle. She’d told me she was unable to have kids, and in truth, I didn’t see that as the end of the world, but I knew she saw it as a failure. And then I up and disappeared on her. I couldn’t imagine what she must be thinking. Actually, I could, and that’s why I couldn’t breathe. She probably thought I’d abandoned her. And there was nothing I could do about it.
The very thought was enough to bring me to my knees.
My gaze shifted around. Here I sat in my wrinkled orange jumpsuit, handcuffed, waist chained, and shackled around the ankles, waiting for someone to grace me with his or her presence. The million-dollar question was—who was it going to be?
FBI?
DEA?
Someone else entirely?
Voices carried down the hall. Someone was shouting at someone else. It was a female voice I heard getting louder.
Suddenly, the door burst open and the she-devil herself came waltzing in. She had a suit on, and her trademark red heels, but her face wasn’t plastered in that frown she always wore.
Today, she looked genuinely pissed. “Get those off him,” she barked.
Two cops came scurrying in and unlocked the chains and undid the cuffs.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said to me, looking truly upset.
I shrugged. “Want to tell me what this is all about?”
“Out,” she ordered the two cops who were now standing beside me.
“Ma’am, protocol calls for us to stay with the prisoner.”
She narrowed her eyes at them. “If you don’t want me to put your balls in an envelope and mail them home to your wife, you’ll leave us alone. Now!”
They were out of the room in two seconds flat.
Agent Meg Blanchet with her red hair, red nails, and red shoes came and sat across from me. “I gave the orders on Friday for you to be placed under surveillance and then picked up Monday morning for questioning. The local cops assigned to tail you saw you packing your vehicle. They thought you were fleeing the country, so they picked you up Saturday.”
“I wasn’t fleeing. I was going to New York City for the weekend.”
“Not that I don’t believe you, but how do you explain the wire transfer of over five million dollars into one of your accounts?”
My brows popped. “My maternal grandfather must have released my trust fund.”
Dark brown eyes looked unexpectedly amused. “Well, whatever the purpose of the transfer, since there was no passport found in your possession, I don’t believe you were planning on fleeing the country. Unfortunately, an error in the chain of command delayed my notification that you had been detained.”
My anger was well past any explanation. “Tell me why I’m here and what this bullshit terrorist charge is about.”
“The terrorist threat charge had nothing to do with me. According to the local PD, a call was traced back to you. One in which you were threatening to burn the entire courthouse down if Flannigan didn’t get life behind bars.”
“When I was picked up, the officers claimed I was aiding and abetting a known terrorist. Now you’re saying I made a threat. Which bullshit claim is it?”
She shrugged. “Does it really matter?”
I shook my head. “No. I guess not. You know I’m smarter than that. Why would I ever do something so stupid?”
She held a hand up and ticked at her fingers. “Because Patrick had your grandfather killed and everyone is claiming he died of natural causes, even the facility he was living in. Because you were the one who arranged for the cover-up. Because you wanted vengeance.” She lowered her hand. “Any of those reasons could be why. Are you going to admit it?”
I pushed from the table and ignored her question. She fucking knew what I’d done, I didn’t have to admit it, and why the fuck did she care? I couldn’t have everyone investigating his death. And I couldn’t have Flannigan basking in the glory of Killian’s death. I wasn’t going to let him flex his power that way. “You know the terrorist charge is total bullshit. Those cops are on Flannigan’s payroll and just wanted to fuck with me.”
She pursed her lips. “Yes, unfortunately I’m afraid you might be right about that. I’m looking into it.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Get me the fuck out of here then and I might not take down the whole fucking place with the lawsuit I’m going to shove so far up your ass, you’ll be lucky to be pushing paper behind some desk.”
Her grin was wicked as she slid a folder my way. “Take a seat and calm down. You’re not here for terrorism, but you are here for a very good reason.”
I didn’t sit, but I did open the folder.
She tapped her fingernails on the table. “I’m not going to beat around the bush, Logan. You’re our prime suspect in the murder of Elizabeth O’Shea. That’s why you’re here.”
My head jerked down. I hadn’t even read the first line of the report yet. I was having trouble wrapping my head around the pictures of Lizzy’s dead body spread out on the table. “What?”
“We’ve got your fingerprints on an item found at the crime scene. I have a statement from you claiming you never met Elizabeth O’Shea, and yet a mechanic has identified you as the man with Elizabeth O’Shea on March twenty-first when her car went into the shop.”
“Did he identify Elizabeth?”
“No, he said he’d met her inside a bar and it was too dark.”
Whatever. I started to list the other facts. “My fingerprints? On what?” I asked quietly, suddenly very concerned.
“A baby rattle. An elephant’s head.” She pointed to the folder. “It’s all in there.”
I slammed the folder down. “You know I didn’t kill her. Just like the terrorist charge, that’s not why I’m here. So what’s the real reason?”
She shook her head. “Believe it or not, Logan, what I think is irrelevant. It’s the evidence that tells the story, and the evidence in this case is very convincing.”
It would be easy enough to clear up the identification of Elizabeth with a few more photos. The messy part would be explaining why Elle was pretending to be her. And I didn’t want to bring her into this at all. I sat down. Not. One. Fucking. Bit. “What do you want?”
“I want to know where you got the drugs. Who had them before you moved them to Lucy’s.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I knew it.
She knew.
Fierceness tightened my features. “I had nothing to do with that.”
She picked up the folder. “You and I both know that’s bullshit.”
I stared her in the eyes.
She opened the folder and pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me.
I glanced at it. I knew I was looking at compounds, but what the values meant, I had no idea.
“You can keep that,” she said with a smile.
“What is it?”
“Evidence.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Evidence for what?”
That smirk wasn’t fading. “To convict you of a felony. We found traces of an acidifier compound on the bags of cocaine that were picked up at Lucy’s, and traces of the same agent were found in your vehicle during a recent forensic search.”
My brows drew together in concentration. “An acidifier compound? What the hell are you talking about?”
The bricks
of coke were in bags of salt.
“Flora Crystal Clear is what it’s called. It’s a salt compound used to increase the life of fresh-cut flowers.”
No fucking way.
A light bulb went on in my head at the same time a conversation I had with Killian presented itself in my mind.
“O’Shea, he’s Mickey the florist’s boy?”
“Yeah, that’s him. He’s an attorney.”
My gramps raised his brows. “And young O’Shea’s claiming he isn’t involved?”
“That’s what he told Pop, but I’m not so sure.”
Gramps shook his head. “I’m with you. Not sure I’d believe him.”
The tiredness in the back of my eyes faded at the realization I might be right. “Why do you say that?”
Shifting on the bed, he brought his large frame to the head and settled back. “I can’t say, really. It’s a feeling based on what I know of his old man. When Mickey O’Shea was a teenager, he was a small-timer hoping to hit it big. Always doing stupid things. I warned your father to stay away from him in school. And it was a good thing I did. At nineteen, Mickey did a five-year stretch for hijacking a fleet of trucks. His first big job and he gets caught right out of the gate. Fucking idiot. When he got out, he started up his own gang. Some shit went down with his wife and after that the gang folded. Lucky for him, his mother had passed and he took over her flower shop. He seemed to give up on making his fortune and settled for domestic life. Then his wife was killed in some gang-related crime and I haven’t heard his name since. But if the young O’Shea is anything like his old man was, he’s a dreamer hoping to hit it big the easy way.”
Holy fucking shit. Mickey O’Shea was the Priest, and that’s the connection to Michael O’Shea.
It has to be.
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
Blanchet eased her body forward on the table. “What is it?”
My enlightenment must have registered all over my face. “We’ve been missing a huge piece of the puzzle. The source of the drugs is the unknown. Right? The reason we haven’t been able to make heads or tails of this.”
“No shit. That was your job. Remember? We thought we’d get to the source the night the drugs just miraculously turned up outside a strip club.”
