Mom finally did let Jack go, and everybody hugged Jack one by one. Mom came up to me, and hugged me. “I love you,” she said. “And I’ll never criticize your occupation again.”
I smiled. “Oh, I think you will. I think you will. But I love you too, mom.” I looked over at Jack. “And he needs to get some serious help,” I said. “Jack is back, and, hopefully, he’ll stay out, but I don’t know, mom. He needs somebody who is an expert on DID to help him integrate.”
“I found just the person,” she said. “In New York. I already spoke with your brother Jason, and Jason said that Jack can stay with him while he’s getting treatment. Dr. Lowell is considered the top expert on DID in the nation. I think that he can help Jack. I think that he can.”
I smiled. “Let’s hope so. At any rate, Jack is back with us. I think that we should savor that.”
“We will. We will. In the meantime, let’s celebrate! I made reservations at Piropo’s.”
I was excited about that – Piropo’s was an Argentinian restaurant in Parkville, which was a community up North. The restaurant was situated high on a cliff and was one of the most highly rated and popular restaurants in the city.
I couldn’t possibly have been looking forward to something more. It was time to eat and be with my family without stress.
Everything was right in the world.
OF COURSE, things didn’t go smoothly for long. My stress couldn’t stay low for too long. I had an amazing time with my family at the restaurant after Jack’s trial, and Jack was shortly shipped off to New York to stay with my brother, Jason, so that he could see the most respected DID specialist in the country. Jason, who was a Goldman Sachs executive, and was making the big, big bucks, was footing the bill.
But I came into my office one Monday and found that I had been assigned a death case. Darnell Williams, an African-American underprivileged youth, was accused of killing a cop.
And Steven was arrested by the KCPD for the murders that were committed by Jackson. After Steven emerged from being in the woods, and got back into society, he was once again on the radar of the police force. They went back into Jackson’s house, found Steven’s fingerprints in various places in the house, and they arrested him.
I was expecting that, to be honest. I was heartened that Steven’s bond was only $25,000, which told me that the arrest was nothing more than a formality. The police force had to cross his t’s and dot his i’s. Nevertheless, I told him that I would help him, pro bono, and I was going to do that.
But the upshot was that I was going to be working, simultaneously, two murder cases.
My life was about to get crazy again.
The story continues with Injustice for All. It’s available on Amazon for only 3.99!!!! http://amzn.to/2qC6kzv
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Chapter One of Injustice for All
Darnell Williams was a quiet child. A studious child. He was one of six children living in a two-bedroom apartment in a run-down house East of Troost. At age 18, he was the oldest child. He was presently working two part-time jobs, in addition to going to school full-time, because he had to save money for college and for his math tutor. Anything he earned, over and above his savings goals and tutor money, went to his mother, Anita, who worked two jobs herself – one job was full-time as a hospital orderly and the other was part-time working as a housekeeper for a local motel. The motel where she worked sometimes charged by the hour and made a Motel 6 look like the Hilton. She never complained, though, and she never took a dollar from the government. Darnell sometimes wished that she would – it would take some of the burden off of him.
That night, that fateful night, he was working one of his jobs. He was a fry cook at a Church’s Chicken, and he was assigned clean-up duty. Basically, he was tasked with closing the place, which meant that he had to stay after everybody else had already gone home. He didn’t really mind it that much – it gave him some rare alone time. Every other minute of his life was filled with people – he shared a bedroom with his four brothers and sisters, so he never got a moment’s peace at his place. The rest of the time, he was at school and his two jobs. He never got the chance just to sit in the quiet and hear himself think, so he really enjoyed those nights when he was assigned final clean-up.
“Darnell, now, you know the drill,” his night manager, Sally Monroe said to him. She trusted him, more than she trusted any of his co-workers, because Sally knew that Darnell would never take an extra dollar from the cash register. She couldn’t necessarily say the same about the other kids who worked there. Not that she blamed any of them for wanting to take an extra dollar here or there - she knew these kids’ situations. The best that she could do for any of them was to allow them to take home the chicken that was made but not bought – at least that way she knew that these kids would have something to eat at home. She wanted to give them all a pay raise, but that wasn’t her call. “Make sure the floor is mopped, clean the bathrooms spotless, take out the trash, clean out the fryer and make sure all the food is put away.”
Sally had, in a leather blue pouch, the day’s earnings from the cash register. She was the one who made sure this money found its way to the bank every night. She wanted to have Darnell do the drop sometimes, but she knew that he rode the bus to the restaurant every day, so that would never do. He might get rolled on the bus and then where would she be?
“I know, Ms. Monroe,” Darnell said to her. She always asked him to call her “Sally,” but he never would. His mama always instructed him to treat his elders with respect. Sally was at least 27 years old, so that made her his elder. He always addressed her as “Ms. Monroe” and “ma’am.” No matter how many times Sally chided him, telling him that “Ms. Monroe isn’t my name. That’s my mama’s name. My name is Sally,” Darnell persisted in calling her “Ms. Monroe.” His own mama drilled that kind of respect into him.
Sally nodded and smiled. She was a chubby woman, with big blonde hair and too much eye shadow. She probably ate too much fried chicken from Church’s, as that was her favorite thing to eat. Darnell liked that she was chubby, because she reminded him of his own mama. His mama was only 33 years old herself, giving birth to Darnell when she was only 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. In her high school, this wasn’t exactly an unusual occurrence. A lot of girls in her class were having babies at the same time.
Even so, his mama always told him that he wasn’t going to be having babies in his teenage years. She dragged him, when he was only 13 years old, to the local birth control clinic and had the doctor there show him all about condoms and how to use them. He stilled cringed with embarrassment when he thought about all the times that his mama gave him a condom and had him slip it on a banana while she watched.
No matter, Darnell had no use for condoms yet. He was way too busy with his two jobs and his schoolwork to even notice girls. His math tutor was a girl, a pretty girl named Chantal, who wasn’t much older than him. But he never even really thought about her that way – she was simply somebody who was going to help him conquer calculus. He had applied to MIT and he was determined that he was going to go there on a scholarship and go on to study nuclear engineering. That was his dream, anyhow, but he knew that he might have to settle for state university and a degree in electrical engineering. Either way, he knew that he was going to go on to get a master’s degree in some type of engineering. And he was never going to have to share a bedroom again.
Plus, he was going to take care of his mama, once he got out into the world and started making six figures. He hated that she had to work so many hours just to keep a roof over everybody’s head and food on the table. He wanted her to, someday, be able to relax once in awhile. As far as he knew, she had never, ever, had a vacation. She never even had the chance to go and get a massage or get
her nails done or any of that. Every penny that she earned was put into groceries, utilities and rent.
All he wanted was for her to be able to slow down. Maybe only have one job, and maybe find a job where she had a paid vacation once a year. Maybe Darnell might be able to give her enough money so that she could actually do something on that paid vacation – maybe something simple, like take a trip to The Elms, which was a tiny resort just north of town. He had seen the website and this looked like just the place for his mama – it offered a full spa and a hot tub and pool and indoor baths that promised a relaxation haven.
Maybe he might even be able to send her to Vegas once in awhile. Not that his mama gambled, but he often caught her watching Cirque de Soleil on television, and he had never seen her face light up so much as when she was watching one of those shows. She also spent her time watching house remodeling shows, and other shows that featured gorgeous high-dollar houses that were for the taking. One such show featured a couple who would look at three different houses and had to pick just one. His mama got mad sometimes that those people on the shows found such faults in such beautiful surroundings – house number one isn’t good enough because it doesn’t have a pool, and house number three only has four bedrooms, not five, and where are the granite countertops?
“Lordy, Darnell,” mama would say while she watched a couple pick apart a seaside mansion that was situated high on a cliff. “Could you imagine if they came and saw this place?” She would shake her head. “They’d run screaming from the room, that’s what they would do.” Then she would chuckle and speak under her breath.
Darnell always knew that most people in the world had it better than he did. Better than his family. But not anybody he knew. Everyone he knew was in the same boat, some even worse – Darnell always had a lunch to bring to school and his mama always took him clothes shopping before the school year began. Sometimes they went shopping at Goodwill, but, on occasion, his mama would be able to afford to take him clothes shopping at Wal-Mart. A lot of his friends didn’t have a mama like his. Some had mamas who were strung out on drugs or were into prostitution. Others had mamas who beat them. Hardly any of his friends had a baby daddy hanging around – most of them had gone to prison or were absent and on the streets.
That was the case with Darnell’s mama. He never knew his baby daddy. He wasn’t ever around, not even when Darnell was a baby. But that didn’t really matter to him – his friends were much the same, so nobody ever felt that they were missing out.
He took his iPhone out, put it on Apple Music, and blasted Drake in his headphones. While he listened to the music, he carefully mopped the floor, taking his time. He enjoyed getting the floor squeaky clean. There was something about seeing a grimy, greasy, oily floor go from being almost black to being sparkling white that fascinated him. He always took his time closing up. Sally had explained that he had to have his work done in one hour, because her general manager would never let him work past that, but Darnell usually took two hours cleaning up. He clocked out after an hour, and then spent another hour, all on his own time, making sure that all the crevices were clean. He would dust and scrub and get lost in knowing that he was doing the best job that he could do.
It was all worth it when Sally would come in the next day, or Chloe, who was the morning manager, and they would marvel about how spotless the restaurant was. Not that he cared about getting gold stars and pats on the back or any of that, but he did like it when they noticed that he did a good job. Anybody would, even though too much praise sometimes embarrassed him.
And, truth be told, he was never in a hurry to get home. He reveled in knowing that he was the only person around. He liked that this restaurant, at this time, was his little bit of space in the world. He never had much control around his own house – with six people living there, it was tough to keep up with the dishes in the sink and the spills on the carpet. There was always spoiled milk on the couch, or bits of cereal ground into the rug. One time, his little sister, Alisha, ate a runny egg on the floor, in front of the TV, and that egg yolk hardened into that spot. The place didn’t have a dishwasher, and it didn’t even have a dining room. Everybody ate on TV trays or on the floor, and there was simply no keeping up with any of it. There also wasn’t a washer and dryer in the apartment, nor was there one in the building, so clothes were constantly piling up in both of the bedrooms. Darnell long since forgot what his bedroom’s carpet looked like, as it was always covered with clothes, shoes, books and toys.
But, here at the restaurant, he could make the place look just how he wanted it. He could make sure that everything was put back in its place, that there wasn’t a crumb of food anywhere and that the floor was so clean that he could eat off of it. There wasn’t the chaos in this restaurant, the chaos that he constantly experienced in his home.
He took off his head phones, gathered up the trash and opened the door into the alleyway.
Humming a tune that was in occupying his headspace, he threw the trash into the bin and turned around.
And stopped.
At his feet was a body.
And a gun was right next to it.
ALSO BY RACHEL SINCLAIR
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
HARPER ROSS VOL. 1-3
BAD FAITH
Copyright
Also by Rachel Sinclair
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Also by Rachel Sinclair
Justice Denied
Copyright
Also by Rachel Sinclair
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Also by Rachel Sinclair
Hidden Defendant
Copyright
Also by Rachel Sinclair
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Harper Ross Legal Thrillers vol. 1-3 Page 92
