Probably better, all in all, because Jillian hated for Katie to see her like this.
Jillian hated being like this.
She was tired, she thought as she slung her purse over the back of a barstool. So tired of it all. Hadn’t she suffered enough? Couldn’t fate or the Universe or whatever higher power cut her the tiniest break?
Feeling as weepy as she’d just been pissed, Jillian crossed the kitchen. Pulled a bottle of water from the fridge. Unscrewing the lid, she headed toward the doorway. The click of her low heels echoed like gunshots against the tile, the light in the hallway seemed a glaring beacon.
She stopped. Everything was too loud, too bright. Too… much.
Her own heartbeat sounded thunderous to her ears, the blood pumping through her veins nearly audible in a sort of rushing, gurgling pulse. The pits of her arms began to sweat even as her mouth dried up.
She took a sip of the water.
Was she having a panic attack? She’d had a few… before. The first when she’d woken up in the hospital after the assault, hooked up to tubes and probes and machines. The doctor had been forced to sedate her. She knew the physiological symptoms, the racing heart, the trembling, the shortness of breath. Tingling in hands and fingers. The sense of impending doom.
And while psychically she was experiencing some of those things, she didn’t feel panicked. She’d felt angry, and then sad. And now she was terribly confused.
A panic… reaction, maybe. But not a full-fledged attack. And the emotions she’d been suppressing for a while were simply hitting her all at once.
A little steadier now that she’d thought it through, Jillian continued down the hall toward the stairs. The wallpaper – a flocked velvet featuring birds and trees in a shade of rose that Jillian still wasn’t sure how Katie’s grandmother had ever talked her grandfather into – seemed even more showy than normal. Garish, even. The color was so bright that she could swear that she heard the birds themselves shrieking in protest.
Jillian stopped again, held her hands –including the water bottle – over her ears, and tried to block out the noise.
Something not quite right, she realized. Something in fact very… wrong. You couldn’t hear colors. Inanimate birds did not make sounds.
When her hip struck something solid, she realized that she must have staggered forward without knowing. Eyes popping open, she stared at the little table by the front door. At the unclaimed mail she’d left there yesterday for Katie.
Her thoughts veered of their own accord toward Jesse, toward the day he’d kissed her brainless right here against this wall.
You might not be able to hear colors, but she could swear she heard her own brain cells exploding – pop, pop, pop – every time she looked at his eyes. They were like blue pools of damnation. Leading her to hell, but right at the moment she didn’t care.
Jillian shook her head. Where the hell had that come from? Blue Pools of Damnation sounded like a really terrible garage band.
And she did care. Logically, she understood his position, but emotionally was another matter. If she were being completely honest with herself, the fact that he hadn’t shown up today while the police were here serving the warrant that he clearly arranged for felt like yet another slap in the face. She wanted to hate him for it. She really did. But she mostly just felt miserable.
Jillian turned toward the stairs a mite too quickly, because she lost her balance and dropped her water bottle in the process of steadying herself. “Well, crap.” She looked down at it, spreading over the hardwood. “That’s a mess.”
She needed to clean it up. A mop. There was a mop in the utility closet.
She started to turn away to find the closet, the mop, but found her gaze drawn to the nesting dolls instead. They were all there. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven painted wooden figurines. Red, such a bright, vivid red except…
One of the dolls was blue.
“No,” Jillian said, closing her eyes. Jesse’s eyes were blue. The dolls were red.
She opened her eyes again.
The little doll was still blue.
“It can’t be.” She picked it up, looked at it closely. Dropped it to the floor with a choked scream.
It lay in the puddle of water, melting… melting. Oh God, everything was melting.
Jillian whirled around, slipping in the water and landing on her butt. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to fight the sensation that she was melting as well, when the sound of the squeaking stair tread made her look up.
A man stood on the stairs, his face lost in the shadows. “Davis?” He descended another step, and Jillian’s heart squeezed into her throat. “Alexei?”
But it couldn’t be.
Gasping, Jillian scrambled to her feet, pressed her back against the door. “You’re dead,” she said to the apparition. “Dead.”
When he – it – moved closer, Jillian fumbled for the doorknob. The alarm started wailing behind her as she opened the front door and fled, but it wasn’t until she saw the headlights coming at her that she realized she’d run into the street.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LIKE the waters of the Red Sea, people moved out of Jesse’s way as he strode through the halls of the police station, known to locals as The Barracks. It was good that no one stopped or questioned him as he might have had to kill them, and he didn’t want anything to dull the razor sharp edge of his anger.
He located the interrogation area, took a deep breath before knocking on the door to the observation room. It wouldn’t do to go in like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, creating carnage from everything that moved. He had to be a smarter hunter.
Detective Portman opened the door.
“Agent Wellington,” she said, stepping back so that he could enter. “I…” Her voice trailed off when she saw his expression, and then she cleared her throat before shutting the door. “I see you’ve been apprised of the new development.”
He counted to three before he could trust himself to answer. Five. Okay, let’s try ten. “Apprised. Yes, I’ve been apprised.” He glanced pointedly at his watch. “Hours after the fact.”
“There were circumstances –”
“Circumstances,” he cut her off “which precluded informing the lead investigator in the case that there’d been a development of some magnitude. Please. Do tell.”
Her lips thinned, the café au lait tone of her skin taking on a few drops more cream. “Perhaps I should let you speak with Detective Goode.”
She stepped back, and Jesse got his first look at the observation window – which he purposefully avoided – and the four men standing in front of it. One of them was Goode, the other detective assigned to Gannon’s case. One of them was a narc whom he vaguely recognized. The third man was Detective Axelrod.
And the other was his brother, Jordan.
“What the hell is an ADA doing here at this point?” he demanded.
The men broke off their discussion and turned toward him. Jordan’s dimples flashed in the first moment of recognition but then disappeared when he got a good look at Jesse’s face.
“My brother’s involved in this case?” he asked Goode.
“Tangentially,” was the detective’s answer.
“Tangentially?” Jesse demanded, looking all around him. “Unless someone with higher rank is around to indicate otherwise, I’m the lead in this case.”
“No, you’re the lead in the Losevsky murder. Gannon is one of ours.”
Jesse stared for a moment, and then scrubbed a hand over his face. “Gannon was also one of mine. Or have you forgotten the joint task force?” He glanced at Axelrod, who took a sudden interest in his shoes. “Or how about the fact that I gave you the grounds you needed for the warrant for Ms. Montgomery’s house? And yet you don’t think I need to be informed that she’s been arrested?”
“For public intoxication, not in connection with Losevsky’s murder. Hence the presence of our narcotics officer,” Goode nodded to the other man. “He
got first crack at questioning her due to the nature of the charge, and we had to wait for the drug she took to wear off some.”
“And where was she while this drug was wearing off?”
“We had her contained.”
Jesse nodded, as if rage weren’t percolating in his blood. “Contained. And I assume she received proper medical attention and treatment considering she was hit by a goddamn car?”
The room was quiet in the aftermath of his outburst, until Detective Portman cleared her throat. “You can see for yourself that she’s fine.”
Jesse didn’t dare. He didn’t dare look through the window yet.
“Look,” Goode added in a conciliatory tone. “We would have called you when it seemed relevant to bring you in.”
“When it seemed relevant.” Jesse could feel his hands bunching into fists, so he purposefully flexed them. “I had to hear about this from Agent Parker, who heard about it from his sister, who heard about it from the neighbors when she arrived home in the early hours of the morning. I contacted my boss who – guess what? – hadn’t heard anything either. He’s conferring with your boss about that particular oversight right now. You’re fortunate that my boss forbade Agent Parker from coming down here, as the ass chewing you’ll be receiving from your lieutenant is nothing compared to what he would be dishing out.”
He turned his attention to Detective Axelrod. “We’ve worked together for weeks now. But it didn’t cross your mind that, hey, maybe Agent Wellington has a vested interest in this latest development?”
Axelrod looked up. “It’s your vested interest that worries me.”
“Excuse me?”
“You and Parker. You’ve been easy on the Montgomery woman from the get-go. Treating her like she’s made of fucking glass.” His bottom lip quivered before he firmed it and viciously said: “And now Nick is dead.”
“And you think Ms. Montgomery had something to do with that.”
“I think that bitch was high as a kite last night, and you yourself saw her at The Shady Lady – which, interestingly enough, is the location Losevsky had written on her card. It’s obvious she’s into the drug scene, which means she knows something and lied about it to protect her sweet little ass. Just like Nick said. And Nick found something, something that would bust her, and now he’s dead. Hung from his own chandelier with her Christmas lights, and some of those drugs stuffed in his pocket to make him look dirty. If you weren’t too busy coddling her, you’d realize that him wearing your shirt amounted to whoever it is that she’s been protecting having some fun at your expense. Flipping the bird at your investigation. She killed him, sure as if she’d done it with her own hands.” The detective took a menacing step forward. “And I’m going to see that she pays.”
“George,” Detective Goode said with unflappable clam. “Tone it down or I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Tone it down?” Axelrod said. “It’s not your partner lying on a slab.” He glared at Jesse. “Although it could be, if this asshole continues to play patty-cake with suspects instead of doing his damn job.”
“Your anger is understandable,” Jesse said in a tone that belied his incandescent fury. “Considering your recent loss. But you’re making some vast assumptions based on your personal feelings rather than any actual evidence to indicate Detective Gannon did not voluntarily hang himself. And if the autopsy does reveal foul play and you have screwed up this case’s chances in court with your ham-fisted handling of a possible witness’s rights, I will see to it that your damn job will entail a rent-a-cop uniform and the local mall.”
“Um, if you’ll excuse us for a moment,” Jordan broke in, smiling charmingly as he pushed past the others. “I’d like to have a conversation with my brother. Outside. Outside,” he repeated in a pointed tone when he drew closer to Jesse. He emphasized it by grabbing Jesse’s arm, all but dragging him into the hallway. Then he kept going, into the stairwell, where they were less likely to be overheard.
He turned, hands on hips, and stared at Jesse with eyes the exact same color as Jesse’s own. “Now,” Jordan said. “What the hell is going on?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Okay. Let me synopsize what I know. Ms. Montgomery was arrested last night after entering the roadway where she was struck by a passing car. She sustained only minor injuries, including scraped palms from falling to the pavement, as the car had been traveling at a slow rate of speed while looking for a parking spot. According to witnesses on the scene, she raved about melting dolls and ghosts on the stairway, indicating hallucinations of some sort. She reacted very… strongly when approached by the officers who responded to the scene. She’s facing charges of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest as well as the public intoxication and entering the roadway while intoxicated. Also, jaywalking.”
Jesse stared at him. “Jaywalking.”
“That’s what’s on the report. My office, of course, is willing to plead her down should she be willing to roll over on her dealer. I think they’re hoping to tack on accessory to murder as well, though at this point there’s not enough evidence to sustain such a charge, although her fingerprints on the hanger found at the detective’s residence does raise questions.”
Jesse rubbed his forehead. “The lights came from her house. Of course her fingerprints were on them. But I’ve already established reasonable suspicion that Gannon may have entered the basement where the lights were stored. It’s not a stretch to suggest he removed the lights himself. Do you know if her prints were found anywhere else in his apartment? And it’s ridiculous that I have to ask you because I haven’t been informed of that much.”
“No prints anywhere else,” Jordan said. “I can’t believe I missed your name on that warrant.”
“You didn’t. I called Portman. Goode is right in that Gannon’s death is their case, but wrong in trying to act like it’s not connected to our original investigation. That was Axelrod’s doing, I’m sure of it,” Jesse muttered. “Asshole.”
He pivoted and kicked the wall.
Jordan’s dark brows scrunched together. “What else am I missing?”
“Other than the fact that a stupid turf war might tank the entire case?”
“What was he talking about? When he said that you and Parker have been treating this woman like glass?”
Jesse considered kicking the wall again. Or maybe ripping the stairwell door from its hinges. But he wouldn’t lie to his brother. “Ms. Montgomery lives with Parker’s sister. They’ve been friends for years.”
“Oh. Well, that sucks. I guess he wasn’t aware that she had a drug problem?”
“She doesn’t have a drug problem. She has a cop problem.”
Jordan simply stared at him and Jesse sighed. “She has a history with the Savannah PD.” He gave his younger brother a rundown of Jillian’s situation, of the complexities of the case.
“Wow. Okay. So I can see the defense coming back with a charge of malicious prosecution, given the prior history. Although Ms. Montgomery did enter the street and disrupt traffic. She did resist arrest. She did strike an officer. And she did – according to witness statements – appear to be intoxicated. The simple urinalysis was negative for all but a small amount of alcohol, but they’re waiting on the results of the more exhaustive RIA tests, which should detect the presence of other drugs.”
“It was LSD.” He’d bet money on it.
“I thought you said she didn’t have a drug problem.”
“She said she doesn’t.”
Jordan snorted. “And people don’t lie?”
Jesse ran a hand across the back of his neck to relieve some of the tension. “Brian has never seen her high or stoned. Neither has Katie. There were no drugs or paraphernalia found in the house or studio.”
“So she decided to experiment. Detective Goode said she’d been at a party.”
“She’d been at a wedding, where she was working as the photographer. And how stupid would she have to be to e
xperiment with narcotics when she knew she was already under suspicion for having possible connections to a criminal organization known for peddling that particular drug? When police had been at her house that very morning, serving a warrant? Trust me, this is not a stupid woman.”
“You seem a little defensive. Whoa,” Jordan said when Jesse whipped around. He held up his hands, palms out. “Don’t kill me for making an observation. An accurate observation, if I might add.”
Jesse paused, took stock of his behavior. Yeah, he was acting defensive. Probably because he knew that Jillian had been in police custody the entire freaking night, and he suspected, quite strongly, that they hadn’t been particularly courteous hosts. The thought of her, already frightened and – for reasons that he couldn’t yet explain – tripping on a hallucinogen, locked up, helpless, at the mercy of people who had reason to dislike her…
He punched the wall this time.
Jordan watched him shake out his hand, and then met his eyes with a level look. “She means something to you, doesn’t she?”
Jesse froze. Admitting it out loud to an assistant district attorney was a good way to get his ass booted from the case. But this was his brother.
He dipped his chin in a quick nod.
Jordan scrubbed a hand through his wavy dark hair. “Shit. That’s why you avoided the window. You didn’t want your face to give you away.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, if you’d looked, you’d at least have seen that she’s in good hands.”
Jesse raised his head, and Jordan smiled his sympathy.
“She retained Ainsley as her lawyer.”
JILLIAN tried to stop herself from rocking in her chair, but the action seemed reflexive. Her body’s rote attempt at self-comfort that even her will couldn’t override. Or maybe it was a lingering side-effect of… whatever it was that had caused her to hallucinate last night.
Something she’d eaten? Perhaps the hors d’oeuvres had been bad?
The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set Page 17
