But the protestors aren’t a monolith.
Camping out on each side of the stairs Robbie will descend to freedom, there are two groups chanting slogans about Robbie’s case. On the left, a throng of Robbie’s supporters are calling for his release and waving posters depicting him as a hero. On the right, a smaller but still formidable group of protestors demanding justice for the victims of his Ponzi scheme.
As the doors swing open, the entire crowd surges forward. Maya struggles to stay on her feet under the pressure. Police officers attempt to hold a line, but their only success is keeping people off the stairs.
Emerging from the building, Robbie tries to keep his head down and shielded from the photographers. Catching a glimpse when he reaches the bottom of the stairs, Maya can see that the perfectly groomed man she fell for is gone. His normally perfect hair is disheveled, and the makings of a beard are growing down his neck. While the facial hair tries to mask it, Maya can tell from his cheeks that Robbie’s lost weight during his stay in the cell. His fit body didn’t have much to spare. The large dark rings around his eyes are in stark contrast to his pale skin, indicating he didn’t find much sleep over the past week.
While both sets of protestors scream their points of view at Robbie, the assembled cameras click away for pictures to show the world Robbie Locke’s present state. His legs look weak and shaky as he works his way down the stairs. He’s leaning on Mark for support while the cops push forward to create a path through the crowd.
Following their path with her eyes, Maya notices the black sedan they’re working toward. Caught halfway between the street and the doors, she decides to beat her own path through the protestors to try and meet Robbie by the back door of the car. She can no longer see him through the hoard of people, but she has a reasonable idea of his position based on the direction of chanting and where the posters are pointing.
Beating him to the car, Maya tries to elbow her way into a position where he can see her before disappearing into the car. She wants to see the look in Robbie’s eyes when he sees her again. If Mark wants her to be here, she assumes part of Robbie wants it too.
Maya watches Mark’s head poke out of the crowd and braces herself to see Robbie again.
It never happens.
Instead, she feels an elbow dig into her back and knock her out of the way. It’s not the normal shuffling of a crowd. The stranger grabs her shoulder and practically flings her to the ground to pass her.
Landing on her hands and knees, Maya tries to figure out who threw her out of the way. Her eyes settle on a brown pair of men’s boots standing right beside the sedan. But before she can stand up to confront him, she hears it.
Three gunshots ring out.
The sound causes panic to erupt throughout the crowd.
Not wanting to be caught in any crossfire, people start scattering in every direction. Maya forces her way up onto her feet to avoid being trampled in the ensuing commotion.
Another series of shots makes many in the crowd drop to their knees for cover.
Trying to figure out what’s happening, Maya props herself against the car for support. Scanning the remnants of the crowd, she quickly spots the brown boots. They’re attached to a body lying motionless on the ground with a pool of blood growing around him.
Maya doesn’t waste much time mourning him, as her eyes drift to Mark hunching over the ground. He’s cradling Robbie’s head.
She rushes over to join them and drops to her knees.
The blood gushes over her hands as soon as she reaches down to touch him. The scream catches in her throat. The life’s already gone from Robbie’s eyes.
Pressing down on his chest, blood spurts up onto the whale pendant at the end of her necklace. A crueler reminder than she could ever have imagined, Maya fights the urge to cry.
Her feelings were complicated, and she knows she’ll miss Robbie, but she doesn’t need any of the photographers picking that up. The guilt is pushing the tears as much as anything. She bears responsibility for Robbie being here.
With the shooter subdued, the police join Maya in gathering around Robbie. As reporters start rushing back to the scene, the officers form a shield to protect Robbie and another body. A couple of officers come over with a sheet to cover the bodies up, insisting Maya and Mark back away from the crime scene.
She questions the purpose of securing the area since they already know who’s responsible, and he’s lying only a few feet away.
Chapter Thirty Four
Maya doesn’t remember how, but she soon finds herself leaving in the back seat of the sedan with a jacket wrapped around her.
She isn’t alone, with Mark also lost deep in thought beside her. His shirt and shoes are stained with blood, forcing her to accept that she isn’t waking up from a horrible nightmare.
“What happened?” Maya asks herself as much as she’s addressing Mark. She doesn’t look at him for the answer. Trying to keep herself from breaking down, her eyes don’t wander from her knees. Looking at the blood again would just be too much.
“They’ve promised to call me once they identify his shooter,” Mark answers.
His calm answer fails to comfort her. Maya can still hear the gunfire and the screams from the crowd’s reaction. Her ears are ringing and she realizes her cheeks are wet despite her resistance to crying. It’s a relief that she was at the gym this morning and doesn’t have any mascara on to betray the brave face she’s trying to maintain.
“Why?” Maya mumbles, her lips starting to tremble.
“They’re assuming it’s someone who lost money because of Robbie.”
“Do you believe that?”
She doesn’t find anything about Mark’s reaction reassuring. The crazy conspiracy theories are already running wild in Maya’s head. Only in Robbie and Teddy’s world, they don’t feel far fetched.
“I have no reason not to,” Mark says as he shoots her a dirty look. Questioning the company line isn’t how he wants to spend this ride. “Vigilante justice strikes again.”
“But wasn’t Robbie the vigilante? He stole from people with too much and gave to those with nothing.”
“Call it karma then,” Mark shrugs.
His job isn’t to find a reason behind life’s cruel twists and turns. His job is to protect his clients and his failure to do so will be on the front-page of every newspaper in the country. His secretaries have already sent a text warning their phone lines are blowing up with requests for comments or interviews. He’ll try to spin this as a success, freeing his client from jail with all charges being dropped, but maybe Robbie was safer on the inside?
It’s a question Mark fears will haunt him forever.
Trying to push it out of his mind, he lifts his hand to his chest, searching for the flask he keeps in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. But all he feels is his dress shirt, having forgotten that Maya’s wrapped in the jacket, the flask pressed against her chest instead of his. Taking a deep breath, he looks out the window and tries to tell himself that he doesn’t need the drink.
“Who was the other body?” Maya asks after the moment of contemplating Mark’s answer.
“The shooter.” The insatiable thirst is draining his patience and her obvious questions aren’t helping.
“No,” Maya shakes her head and closes her eyes to picture the horrific scene again. “A third person was lying on the ground behind Robbie.”
“Was there?” Mark asks as he grabs his phone from the seat beside him and begins scrolling.
After a moment, his expression changes and Maya knows who’s dead before he says it. The lack of empathy in his eyes tells Maya he thinks the victim is responsible for the entire day’s events. But her heart is screaming that she’s the guilty party today.
“One of the FBI agents who arrested Robbie,” Mark mutters, disdain in his voice. “Peter Connelly, off-duty at the time. He was probably there to watch his failure, refusing to give up the chase.”
Maya continues shaking her he
ad, but the words catch in her throat. She knows why Pete was in the area, and now why he’s never coming home.
She wonders if his wife knows yet. A single tear drips down her cheek.
Clenching her teeth and swallowing hard, Maya refuses to allow another tear to join the parade. “Where are we going?”
She wants to change the subject before the thought of Pete’s newborn twins overwhelms her and brings on the waterworks. Mark’s lack of empathy is only worsening her guilty conscience.
But Mark needs the lack of empathy to survive this day. Blaming someone else for the tragic events is the only thing giving his conscience any solace. The only thought keeping him from ordering the car to pull over and find a bar.
“Hmm?” Mark’s attention is still on his phone, reading whatever release has been sent out about Pete’s death.
Maya waves her hand to drag his eyes up from the screen, looking at him expectantly for an answer.
“Oh, I actually haven’t given any directions, only asked the driver to get us out of there.”
“Away sounds like the right place to go,” Maya mutters as she slumps back into the seat. She’s content to disappear from the world and let the leather swallow her up.
She doesn’t know Mark’s battling thoughts of finding a bar. In her mind, it’s exactly where she expects to end the day. The tragic events call for it; she can’t think of any more appropriate conclusion. Her only concern is that she might end her day there earlier than days are meant to end. Checking her watch, she confirms it’s still early in the afternoon. The bars are open, but should she subject herself to that surrender this early?
“Anywhere you want to be dropped off?” Mark asks. The sooner she’s out of the car, the sooner he can have his flask back.
Maya only shakes her head in response.
There isn’t. There’s nowhere and no one she wants to be with right now.
She’s sick of work and doesn’t have it in her to write a story on today’s events. Her apartment is empty and lonely; unless Teddy’s planning to break in again and violate her personal space. The entire building still gives her the creeps on a normal day, let alone right now. Robbie’s the only person she’s been spending time with lately. Or was spending time with. She doesn’t know what any of her other friends are up to. How can she even start a conversation if she tries to reach out to them?
So, sitting in the backseat of the black sedan, Maya keeps shaking her head, letting her hair fall forward and mask her face.
Masking the tears she knows won’t stay at bay for long.
For now, Maya’s content to go wherever they’re willing to take her.
The End
Note From the Author
Thank you for taking the time to read my story about Maya and Robbie. I truly hope you enjoyed it and I appreciate you devoting your time to it.
Now, I have a favor to ask of you. The easiest way for authors with small publishers to gain exposure is through reviews. Please, when you have a spare moment, leave a review with your honest thoughts on whichever platform you purchased this novel from. It really does make a difference. You have no idea of the positive impact you can have by writing a review for your favorite authors.
I would love to hear your thoughts on Maya’s adventure and I hope you can find the time to share them with all potential readers.
Now, enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Justin
Haines’s debut mystery, Pender’s Death.
Chapter One
The rain feels right for the moment.
Whenever Adam imagines a funeral, he always pictures a cloudy day; the hearse pulling up to the church with overcast weather above. As the mourners assemble, the rain would begin to smatter the stained glass, descending into a downpour by the time the pallbearers carry the closed casket from the church. That’s how a funeral looks in his mind. He rarely thinks of himself as one of the pallbearers.
He certainly never imagines it as his own mother’s funeral.
Growing up in Seattle, Adam’s become quite accustomed to the dreary weather. He doesn’t mind that his suit’s getting wet as he helps carry the casket out of the church. Truth be told, he hardly notices, his mind's a million miles away.
If he were more present, he would find the rainfall comforting. It is, after all, how he pictures these events. The mud from the church grounds is being kicked up onto his shoes. On a normal day, he would be upset about the wet suit and muddy shoes.
This is anything but a normal day; there is far more to be upset about.
Cousin Felix delivers a beautiful and elegant eulogy, or so Adam’s told. If asked to summarize it afterward he would struggle to recall a single word. All he can remember is feeling a million miles away.
He feels the haze that has descended over his entire world since he heard the news a few days earlier. He feels the emptiness inside that only those who have lost such a dear loved one feel, like his insides have been scooped out, leaving him to walk around as a jack-o-lantern. He feels something has been missing for the past few days, someone.
He feels Gwen’s hand embrace his throughout the ceremony, a kind gesture that helps him still feel human despite everything.
Most of all, he feels a sense of confusion. How could his mother die from anaphylactic shock? She knew she was allergic to mangoes, avoided them diligently, and always carried her EpiPen with her. While he’s adamant that it doesn’t add up, no one’s taking him seriously. Not his father, not the family’s lawyers, and certainly not the police. They agreed to an autopsy but nothing more once the results came back conclusively as anaphylactic shock.
As much as his father wants everyone to move forward from the whole ordeal, the questions remain. Why didn’t she use her EpiPen when she realized what was happening? In response, the lawyers and police ask who benefits from his mother’s untimely demise. The company’s run by his father, all of their shares are owned by him, nearly every asset is in his name. His airtight prenup and corroborated alibi meant the police ruled him out as a suspect early on. Outside of his heartbreak, nothing’s materially changed for his father.
Adam reckons there are no other suspects, meaning the case will grow cold.
“Careful, son, keep it even,” his father says as they stand at the front of his mother’s coffin, preparing to slide it into the hearse.
His knuckles are turning white. With this grip, no one can possibly say his side’s responsible for it not being even.
“Everyone ready on three?” Martin asks from behind Adam. It’s the last thing Adam hears before the haze creeps back over him.
He glances behind and sees all the faces staring back at him. The pity’s unbearable. He knows he won’t look up again once the hearse drives off. He finds a spot on his shoes and his eyes don't wander.
Finally, he notices the mud on his shoes. It annoys him, being anything less than pristine on this day, the last special day he will ever have with his mother. She deserves nothing short of perfection.
Pushing the coffin into the car, his annoyance grows. Feeling the hundreds of eyes on him makes his skin burn. Afterward, Gwen will tell him that his skin’s reminiscent of the cherries they used to pick at his great grandfather’s farm.
For now, the feeling inside him is spreading. Soon, everything begins to burn. He’s far from annoyed; he’s livid. The anger inside him powers the casket over the last bump and into the back of the hearse.
Slamming the hearse door shut, Adam realizes the levels of anger he can feel are pushing the haze away. He might be angry for the rest of his life, or he might only be angry until he gets the answers he thinks can satisfy him. Hustling back to his McLaren, he knows he’s ready for action. The haze is gone, and Adam Pender is back.
Chapter Two
While his father’s busy thanking all of the mourners for coming, Adam speeds back to the house. He doesn’t need to hear anyone else’s apologies for his loss. Most of the people in the church only know his father, likely through the business o
r perhaps only by reputation, and can’t share anything with Adam about his mother.
Gwen manages to jump in the car just before Adam put it into drive. He doesn’t mind her company; it gives him someone to bounce his theories off of and review what they know the facts to be.
He turns to her whenever he needs a sounding board; he hates to admit it, but she’s always been smarter than him. He needs her ability to put the clues together. Her intelligence is one of the main reasons they started dating in their first year of undergrad at Stanford. He wouldn’t have given up being single for just anyone. And it certainly takes more than a great body to keep him faithful and committed for this long.
Not that she doesn’t also have a great body. They’ve been dating for almost seven years now, but he never grows tired of admiring her.
Today’s no different. She’s wearing a black dress that ends just above her knees. It’s just long enough to be appropriate for the funeral, but now sitting in his car it’s riding up far enough to give Adam a good view of her long tanned legs. Some of the older relatives probably weren’t happy with the dress’s deep V-neck, but Adam knows many of the men in attendance were thrilled to have a distraction to admire.
“The mango allergy was nothing new for Mom,” Adam says. “She always scanned the menu for a list of ingredients or toppings and would double-check that info with our waiters. If she ordered breakfast tacos, that’s exactly the kind of food she would have opened and peeked inside to make sure there were no surprises.”
“She must have been distracted that morning,” Gwen says, hoping she can help her boyfriend move on from this tragic event before he can become fixated on it. “Or maybe she was just starving. We’ve all been there. There are days where you could put shoestrings in my tacos, and it would take a few bites before I’d notice.”
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