But not before cleaning up the mess. The literal one, anyway. The metaphorical one wasn’t something that could be handled with a broom.
He leaned over, slapped his hand on the light switch next to the table. “If you’ll get something to sweep up this confetti, I’ll pick up the big stuff.”
She continued to stare at him for another moment, uncomprehending. “You want to clean. Right now.”
He glanced up. Her skirt was still up around her hips, her hair a tangled cloud surrounding her head, and he had to restrain himself from giving his very last fuck a little backpack and sack lunch and sending it out the door. “Yeah.”
She gave the kind of half laugh that suggested she thought he was crazy. He couldn’t say he disagreed.
Noticing the position of her skirt for the first time, she smoothed it down over her legs with a kind of embarrassed dignity that made Jesse feel even worse. He started picking up oranges, returning them to the basket.
Jillian started to walk past him, presumably to get a broom, although at this point he thought she was probably as likely to beat him with it as she was to sweep up. He wouldn’t have blamed her.
But she stopped, looking at the turned over basket. Jesse followed her gaze.
There was a box inside, maybe the size of a child’s shoe box, the kind that petit-fours and other little holiday confections tended to come in. It was covered in festive foil paper, but the separately wrapped lid had come askew. An inch or so of some kind of fabric or something hung out of it.
Transfixed, Jillian slowly reached down, lifted the lid aside.
Jesse shot out his arm, but wasn’t quick enough to catch her before she fell.
“JILLIAN. Jillian.”
Her eyes fluttered open. Jesse’s face was immediately above hers.
“There you are. She’s coming around,” he said into his cell phone.
Jillian looked past him, saw the fancy chandelier in the front hall blinking in and out of focus. Was she lying on the floor?
“I don’t know,” Jesse was saying, even as his hand shifted under her. He seemed to be holding her head. “Yeah, she cracked it pretty good. I couldn’t catch her. Now would be good. No, now.”
He looked down at her, saw her watching him. He tucked his phone between his shoulder and his ear. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“What?”
“How many fingers?”
“Three. Though I would appreciate it if you’d stop wiggling them in front of my face.”
His frown deepened. “Yeah, I think so,” he said into the phone “but I’ll keep her immobilized until the EMTs get here, just in case. Don’t move,” he said to Jillian.
“You seem to be laboring under the delusion that you’re the boss of me.”
“The fact that you can put together that sentence encourages me some, but for the moment, I am the boss of you. I said don’t move.”
She scowled at him, and he scowled back.
“Why am I lying on the floor?”
“You fainted.”
“I didn’t faint.” Had she? “I’ve never fainted.”
“There’s a first time for everything. And you cracked your head pretty hard on the edge of the marble-topped table as you were going down. Are you in pain?”
“I wasn’t until you mentioned it.”
He leaned even closer. “Your pupils are even at least.”
“How kind of you to notice.”
“Can you move your arms and legs?”
“Didn’t you just tell me not to move?”
“I meant your head. We have to make sure you haven’t injured your spine. But I want to know if you can move your extremities.”
“Does my middle finger count?” Agitated for reasons she couldn’t explain, Jillian shifted her gaze to the side. And saw the red cellophane on the floor. “Oh God,” she said, memory flooding back.
“Don’t move your head,” Jesse repeated.
“I have to,” she said. “Because I’m pretty sure I’m going to throw up.”
“Shit.”
Jillian tried to get up, to get herself to the powder room, but Jesse basically held her in place. He rolled her over, careful to keep her head, neck and body aligned, and she ended up vomiting on the floor.
It wasn’t much, thank goodness, mostly just liquid. But now she was embarrassed in addition to her head hurting and… “Oh God.”
“Are you going to be sick again?”
Jillian fought back tears. “No.”
Jesse took the shirt she’d handed back to him earlier, used it to wipe up the mess and then tossed it aside, all the while holding her head steady with his other hand.
Jillian couldn’t see what was lying on the floor behind her, but the image was burned into her brain. “It’s Killer.”
Jesse hesitated. “Are you sure? I don’t know how to distinguish one squirrel from the other.”
“I’m sure.” Jillian fought past the lump in her throat. “He has a reddish spot on his back hind leg.” She’d taken enough photographs of him to recognize the marking.
A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye, and Jillian squeezed her lids shut. Jesse muttered a curse. A moment later, she felt his thumb brush over her cheek.
When she heard the sound of sirens, her eyes popped open again. “You called the police?”
“I called an ambulance.”
Panic began to set in. She didn’t do well with hospitals. “I don’t need an ambulance. I’m fine.”
“Let’s let the paramedics be the judge of that. You hit your head awfully damn hard.”
“I’m fine,” she repeated.
“You just threw up on the floor.”
“That’s because…” she’d been horrified to see an animal she had grown to love, to think of almost as a personal mascot, dead and wrapped up like a holiday treat. Left on her doorstep.
“I know it was a shock,” Jesse murmured. “And I can understand why it would make you sick. But that’s a worrying sign in conjunction with a head injury. So just let the EMTs check you out.”
Considering she could already hear them outside and that Jesse was like a ton of bricks holding her in place, Jillian didn’t see that she had much choice. “Fine.”
“I’m going to let go of you for just a minute so that I can go let them in,” he told her. “I asked them to come to the back door, since we want to disturb the basket as little as possible.” He hesitated again. “Brian is on his way. I figured you’d be more comfortable if I contacted him than the cops.”
He eased her onto her back again, his face hovering right above hers, and when their eyes met, some dangerous emotion flickered in his. Anger, she thought. Bright and hot.
But it was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. “Don’t move,” he reiterated as he stood up, strode down the hall toward the kitchen and the back door.
Jillian didn’t, but not because she was worried about her head or her spine. She didn’t want to look to the side. Didn’t want to see… that again. It was bad enough that she could smell it. Her own vomit on one side of her, and the odor of death on the other.
There’d been blood matting the fur on his head.
Jillian closed her eyes and breathed through her mouth, determined not to be sick again. Or to cry. That she would do when she was alone.
She always cried alone.
She heard Jesse leading the paramedics back down the hall, instructing them to be careful not to touch the basket, the cellophane, any of the fruit that still littered the floor. He reminded her of Brian in that moment. No wonder the two of them were friends.
The EMTs came in, did their thing, a nice woman named Nicki taking her vital signs and shining her penlight in Jillian’s eyes, asking her where she’d gotten her boots to keep Jillian’s mind off the horror on the floor beside her. After a series of evaluations, Jillian was given permission to move. She did, with help, to the sofa in the parlor. Jillian felt slightly disoriented, but thought it was more a pr
oduct of the situation than of banging her head.
Nicki recommended that she go to the hospital and get checked out by a doctor just to be sure she didn’t have a concussion. Jillian declined.
Nicki frowned at her, but packed up her bag. “Stubborn,” she said. “Should have known that a woman with boots like that wouldn’t be a pushover.” She went on to warn Jillian that signs of a concussion occasionally took hours to develop. “Over the next twenty-four hours,” she said, including Jesse in the conversation, “you’re going to want to watch out for any more vomiting, worsening headache, neck pain, seizures, blurred vision, slurred speech or numbness.”
“Does she need to be awakened every two hours overnight?” he asked from his position leaning against the parlor doorframe.
“That was the next item on my agenda. Sorry sweetie,” she said to Jillian. “Don’t plan on getting a good night’s sleep tonight.”
“I’ll be right back,” Jesse said, pulling away from the doorframe to show the EMTs out.
When he came back, Brian was with him. Jillian could see him, from her position on the sofa, bending down to examine the remains of the fruit basket scattered across the floor. He and Jesse spoke to each other in low voices, but Jillian couldn’t hear what they were saying. Until Brian looked up sharply at Jesse, and let forth with a heartfelt curse.
Jillian’s shoulders curled in, her heart rate picking up a little. Brian very rarely got visibly angry, hardly ever cursed. At least not within Jillian’s hearing.
Brian climbed to his feet, shaking his head as he left Jesse in the hall and walked into the parlor. He hesitated, and then sat on the table directly in front of Jillian, hands hanging between his knees. When he finally spoke, he kept his voice low. “Are you okay?”
Jillian studied his face. Brian was always so open, so affable with her, joking and teasing just like he did with Katie. She hadn’t seen him look this solemn, this closed, since he’d watched her testify at Mike McGrath’s trial.
“I will be. Brian,” she started to say she was sorry, but didn’t see how this could be her fault. “I hate that you’re being dragged into this again.”
“Into what?”
Her eyes widened at the question. “This.” She gestured toward the hall. “It… it has to be Mike. One of his friends. He put them up to this.”
“Did he?”
Jillian drew back. “Who else could it have been? I… I posted photos of him. Of Killer. On my website. On social media.” And for that, she was sorry. In letting her affection be known, she’d inadvertently made him a target. “I’ve done a few blog posts about him. The squirrel, I mean. And you know I testified, when Mike was up for parole last month. On why it shouldn’t be granted. And it wasn’t. This is payback.”
Brian rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s possible.”
“Possible?” Her heart rate picked up again. “Brian, I don’t understand.”
“Is there anyone else you can think of who might want to… upset you?”
“Because I’m such a horrible person that I can provide you with a whole list?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know, but that’s the way it feels.” She touched a hand to her head, which was throbbing.
“I’m sorry,” Brian said softly. “I know this is hard, but it’s a question that has to be asked.”
Jillian lifted her shoulders. “Mr. Pratt next door – the younger one, Adam – he’s not shy about letting it be known that he thinks the squirrels are vermin. They eat the seed from his bird feeders. He’s crotchety and cranky, but I can’t imagine him doing something like…” she glanced toward the hall and swallowed. “That.”
“Okay,” he said after drawing a deep breath. “I’m going to bag all the evidence, get it to the lab. We’ll find out who’s behind this.” He reached out, took her hand, icy cold, between both of his.
And lowered his voice even further. “You know I love you like a sister, right?”
“The feeling is mutual.”
He nodded. “I know. And that’s why I’m going to say that if there is anything, anything at all, going on with you that you have maybe been afraid to talk about, you can tell me.”
There was some sort of subtext here that Jillian didn’t fully understand. “Do you think I’m hiding something from you?”
Brian stared at her. “Are you?”
At first Jillian couldn’t answer past the lump in her throat. “No. No. Does this… surely you’re not asking me this because those detectives questioned me the other night, are you? You don’t actually believe I had anything to do with that man’s death.”
“No,” he said after a moment. “I don’t. But Jillian, showing up at the Shady Lady tonight…” he shook his head. “Look, don’t do anything like that again. It’s throwing fuel on the flames of suspicion.”
Basically what Jesse had said. “I just wanted to know what I might be up against,” she said in her own defense. She hated being scolded like a child who’d made a bad decision, even if the logic behind that decision sounded flimsier every time she said it. But she’d had to do something.
“I understand that,” Brian said. “But Jillian, these are people you do not want to mess with. Period. You understand?”
“The cops,” she asked “or the people… at the bar?”
“At this point? Both.” He squeezed her hand. “Katie’s on her way home. She’ll be checking on you through the night. I’m going to gather up the evidence, and then Jesse’s my ride.” He paused, and then leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Take care of your head. And make sure that alarm stays set tonight.”
“Don’t worry about that. If Katie’s waking me up every two hours, I certainly won’t be doing any sleepwalking.” Not that she was entirely convinced that was what had happened before. But the alternative was… what?
She still didn’t have an answer.
Jillian watched him walk out, anxiety and grief and anger and fear mixing inside her until she felt nauseated again.
She almost called Brian back, but Katie came bustling in, a bundle of concern and outrage, and by the time she’d filled her friend in on the details, she realized Brian had gone.
As had Jesse. And he hadn’t even said goodbye.
CHAPTER TEN
JESSE opened his laptop, pulled up the video he’d uploaded last night. He then turned the machine around so that the screen was visible to the other people gathered around the table.
“Our sound guru is working on this, seeing if she can separate out more of the conversation in question from the background noises that obscure it. But I wanted to make sure everyone was up to speed while we’re waiting.”
“Thoughtful of you to include us,” Gannon chimed in, the slightly nasal tone of his voice sounding more pronounced than usual. “Hours after the fact. Although I can’t help but notice that you conveniently left us out of the loop during that little incident at Ms. Montgomery’s house last night.”
Brian started to protest, but Jesse held up a hand. “At this point there’s no evidence connecting that incident with the current investigation. In the event that evidence should arise, you’ll be fully informed of any developments.”
“Seems to me that any incidents out of the ordinary that involve Ms. Montgomery – particularly ones that could be deemed… threats – should be approached as connected to the current investigation.”
“Generally speaking,” Jesse told him “I like to have at least a shred of concrete evidence on which to base assumptions. You were informed of the occurrence. Unless and until we have that shred of evidence, you can count yourself lucky that I told you that much.”
Leaning back in his chair, Gannon grinned around his toothpick. “I know Parker here has a personal stake, but are you the lady’s lawyer now? I thought it was your brother that got off – or maybe just got rich – defending scum.”
“Nick,” Axelrod said with a weary glance at his partner. “That’s enough.”
But Jesse returned Gannon’s gaze. “My brother may be a criminal defense attorney, but at least he’s never had to ask me to send him soap on a rope.”
Gannon’s front chair legs hit the floor with a bang just as the door opened, admitting the translator. “I’m sorry,” she said, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “I got held up in traffic.”
“No problem,” Jesse said, pulling out a chair and ignoring the heat of Gannon’s glare. He explained that their technician was working her magic to try and clarify the recording, but wasn’t promising anything. “So in the meantime, we need a basic idea of the content of the conversation.”
It had taken everything he had last night not to run the video through a translation program so that he knew what they were dealing with, allowing both Brian and himself time to mentally prepare if it turned out that Jillian had been lying. But that was putting his personal feelings in front of his professional ethics. Something he couldn’t allow himself to do – at least not to a greater extent than he already had.
And though it pained him greatly, Brian had agreed. Jesse glanced at his friend’s bruised knuckles, recalling the wall that had taken the brunt of his frustration last night.
If he’d told Brian exactly how the fruit basket had been knocked to the floor, he was pretty sure his face would have suffered the same fate.
The translator settled into the chair. “Let’s hear it,” she said.
Jesse played the video, which he’d shot with his cell phone by placing it on the bar. A couple drink glasses, people moving their hands or leaning on the bar obscured the picture, but at least part of Jillian’s conversation with the bartender was relatively clear.
He played it one time through, then again, stopping it at various points as the translator requested to hear certain parts while she jotted down notes.
Finally she sat back. “The woman who is asking the questions, Russian is not her first language. Her phrasing is too formal, her accent too stilted. I can’t hear exactly what she says at first, but the bartender, she distinctly answers ‘meen-tih,’ which is slang for cops. The other woman must not understand the slang term, because the bartender then explains it in English, but with the much harsher ‘pig dung.’” She cast an apologetic look around the table. “Sorry.”
The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set Page 10
