by Abbie Roads
“He works with Thomas at the BCI. Call them.”
“Here are the facts. You’ve admitted to being with Thomas Brown. Staying with him. Having a relationship with him. And driving out there with him. Evidence points to there being a fight. You have a bruise on your face and a head wound. We haven’t had any reports of a dead body lying out in the middle of the road. And we certainly haven’t called in the BCI. Here’s what I think happened. Thomas Brown popped a few too many pills, and you all got into a fight. He knocked you out but then OD’d.” His eyes searched every bit of her face, looking for confirmation. “We all know what happened to Rory Ellis. What I don’t get is why you’d think we’d be stupid enough to believe this cock-and-balls story.”
Cock-and-balls story? Wasn’t it supposed to be cock-and-bull story? But who was she to correct his speech? “Do a little research, and you’ll find out that body isn’t Thomas Brown.” She tried to rein in the sass in her tone. Failed.
“Okay…so let’s say that body isn’t Thomas Brown, and someone really did take him. There’s just one problem with that. Nobody has filed a missing person report for Thomas Brown.”
This guy was either playing dumb to get on her nerves, or he was dumber than a box of boogers. She was leaning toward the booger box.
She spoke through gritted teeth but managed to keep her volume in the normal range. “Of course no one has reported him missing. No one knows he’s missing except me.” She tugged at her wrist cuffed to the bed rail. “Am I under arrest? You can’t detain me unless you’re going to arrest me.” At least she was pretty sure that was the rule.
“I can hold you for twelve hours.”
She glanced at the clock above the nurse’s station. It was 3:07 a.m. Twelve hours would be an eternity.
Chapter 19
One of the fluorescent lights in the interrogation room buzzed and flickered. After ten hours in this miniature-sized room, answering the same questions over and over and over, Helena had a low-grade migraine and high-grade irritation. “Are you going to charge me or let me go?” She made sure her tone didn’t carry any attitude. Didn’t want to give Detective Brody any reason to conjure up some charges.
If what he’d said was true, he technically had two more hours before he had to make a decision. She wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize her potential freedom.
“A lot can happen in two hours. I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.” An almost teasing quality entered his tone, but his face remained deadpan and flat.
He had no evidence. He had no proof. Which should have eased her mind, but she had no faith in the justice system that had convicted her without evidence or proof.
The only glimmer of goodness was that sometime during the past hours of questioning, he’d shifted the narrative away from the idea that it was Thomas’s body out on the road and onto a line of questioning that demanded she tell him the body’s identity. Maybe Brody was finally realizing Thomas was missing.
To her credit, she hadn’t uttered the l-word. Lawyer. Any mention of the word would be an unofficial admission of guilt. Or at least that’s the way law enforcement looked at it. She was keeping the lawyer card in her back pocket in case he kept her over the twelve-hour limit.
Abruptly, Brody stood, opened the door of the interrogation room, and looked out into the hallway. “Hey, Mikey. You wanna escort her to one of the holding cells?”
“We got a full house this afternoon,” an officer answered.
Brody gave her an asshole’s smile. “Perfect.” He stepped back to let a young officer enter the room. Mikey… His name perfectly matched his appearance. He might be in his early twenties, but he had one of those boyish faces dominated by freckles and a prominent cowlick in the front of his short-trimmed hair.
“Come on.” Mikey’s tone carried none of the attitude that Brody’s did. He motioned for Helena to precede him.
Outside the interrogation room, those familiar institutional scents—stale air and unwashed flesh—automatically called up a decade’s worth of prison memories. None of them good.
Two more hours until Brody decided to charge her or release her. Only two more hours.
“Can I make a phone call?” She wasn’t sure if she was entitled to a call, but it didn’t hurt to ask.
Officer Mikey motioned for her to precede him down the hallway to a pay phone hanging on the wall. He lifted the receiver, punched a code into the phone, then held it out to her. “Just dial your number.”
She stared at the thing before taking it. It had been her idea to ask for a phone call, but she hadn’t expected the request to be granted. Who was she going to call? There were only two numbers she knew by heart. Her grandparents and… An idea, fully formed and far-fetched, whacked her upside the head. Before she could over think it, she typed in the number.
On the other end of the line, the phone rang. Once. Twice. “Hello.” His voice, his tone, his inflection glued her lips together, and her tongue felt too big for her mouth. She tried to say something but couldn’t figure out how to form words.
“Hello?” Aggression punched through that friendly word.
Thomas’s voice spoke in her mind. This fear you have… You’re letting them win. And she was sick to damned death of being afraid. “CO Holbrook.” Her voice croaked. She cleared her throat and spoke with force. “I need to speak with Mrs. Ellis.”
“Who is this?”
“Lena.” Saying her prison name out loud made her skin prick. Terrible memories bombarded her mind. She shoved all that away. There was something greater at stake than her old past fear. Thomas’s life was on the line. “Helena Grayse. And if you and Mrs. Ellis want my help to escape the charges that are going to be piled on you both, you’ll let me talk to her.”
Holbrook said nothing else. But he didn’t hang up. She heard the sound of a hand being cupped over the receiver and a muted conversation. No words were distinguishable, but the angry inflection was loud and proud. She couldn’t help the smile that twitched the corners of her mouth. Bet neither of them had expected a phone call from her.
Someone breathed into the receiver, then Mrs. Ellis spoke. “What do you want?” If words could kill, those would’ve been convicted of murder.
Helena didn’t have the time for explanations and niceties. “You want to know what happened to Rory? Not the bullshit you’ve chosen to believe all these years, but the truth?” She didn’t wait for Mrs. Ellis’s answer. “I can take you to his killer. He’ll tell you. All I need you to do is meet me at the Prospectus County police station in two hours. If I don’t come out after two hours…” This was where she might lose the woman. “Then I’m gonna need you to bail me out of jail.”
“I can’t believe your audacity. That you’d ask anything of me when you’ve already taken everything from me.” The woman was riding the ridge of rage.
“I’m offering the truth. Not some lie that’s easy to believe. The truth. Take it or leave it.” She slammed the receiver into the cradle.
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. What had she been thinking? That Mrs. Ellis would care about the truth after she’d invested a decade in a lie? Not likely. Not to mention that she was lying to Mrs. Ellis about taking her to the real killer. Helena knew she could find Thomas, knew it on an instinctual level, and also knew that she would lie, cheat, and steal to get to him. She had figured that once they found him, then they both could explain Malone’s true nature.
“Your people coming?” Mikey asked, pulling her away from her thoughts.
“No…” She stared at the phone, unable to take her eyes off it.
“You need to make another call?” Helpfulness, kindness filled his words.
Should she call the BCI and ask for Kent? She’d never actually met Kent. Would he believe her if she told him what happened? She was Helena Grayse. Felon. Murderer. Law enforcement would automatically be biased against
every word coming out of her mouth. Calling him might lead to wasted time answering questions that didn’t matter when all she needed was to get out of here so she could find Thomas. There was a slim possibility she might be released soon. No way did she want to jeopardize that opportunity. No, she wouldn’t call BCI. At least not until she knew if Brody was going to charge her or release her. If he charged her, she’d call them as a last resort.
She realized Mikey was still waiting for her to answer. “No… There’s no one to call.”
Mikey motioned for her to precede him. “Head down to the end of the row.” He spoke from behind her.
Desperate, degenerate women filled the two other cells she passed. Women who’d gotten lost on the wrong side of life and hadn’t found their way back yet.
And then she was there at the last cell, waiting to be locked in.
Blood rushed out of her head. The world tilted a bit. Panic threated to open its gaping maw and swallow her whole. Not again. I can’t go through this again. Another, stronger voice spoke in her head. This is a temporary holding cell. Not jail. Not prison. Temporary.
Mikey unlocked the door and slid it open.
On the outside, she projected calm acceptance as she walked inside. There was a pecking order to these places. Show weakness, and every woman would capitalize on it.
Five other women were in the cell. Some were coming down from a high, some dressed for their work in the sex trade, and one slept sprawled across the only bench like she’d bought and paid for the thing. Recognition shot a warning flare through Helena’s system. The woman lying on the bench was a former Sister. A freaking Sister. Could things get any worse? Hell yeah. Things had already gone bad just by being on Brody’s radar, and they’d gotten worse when she was placed in this cell with a Sister. They’d go in the shitter if the Sister woke up. But it’d been a few years since the Sister had been released. Maybe she wouldn’t remember Helena.
“I know you.” One of the women sitting on the floor slurred. Her eyes were glassy, and her head seemed unsteady on her neck. “You mmmuurrddeeerrreeed someone.”
Every set of eyeballs turned in her direction, even the Sister’s. Helena witnessed the moment the Sister recognized her. It had nothing to do with her body, nothing to do with her facial expression; it was all in the alert energy the Sister focused on her. Her thoughts so obvious, Helena didn’t need to be psychic to understand their meaning. The Sister was trying to figure out how to kill her in front of all these witnesses.
Helena clenched both hands into fists. Never back down from a fight. Always meet it head-on. Maybe she really was the warrior from her dreams. Now if she could just conjure some of that shimmer stuff…
She locked eyes with the Sister in a silent challenge, but the woman never moved from her position on the bench. Finally, the Sister slung her arm over her face, feigning sleep. But Helena knew she was contemplating murder.
“Sister. Don’t waste your time.” Helena’s words were heavy with warning and laced with promise.
The Sister wrenched herself upright.
Helena knew intimidation when she saw it and head butted it. “You’re wondering how to get word to CO Holbrook that you succeeded where everyone else failed. I got news for you. CO Holbrook is under investigation. Your payday just dried up. You hurt me, and all you’ll get is more time—and I’ll be the one walking out of here toward freedom.”
The other women scuttled into the opposite walls of the cell, well out of the path between the Sister and her. No one wanted to be in the line of fire when this shitter exploded.
“You talkin’ now, bitch?” The Sister stood.
Helena wasn’t a short girl. She was five eight and used to looking down at most women. But she’d forgotten just how tall this Sister was. Six feet at least and hefty, not fat. No, this Sister was a semi, and she was a compact car.
Fear threatened to gallop out of control, but Helena grabbed the reins with both fists. “You can’t kill me. You can try. You might even think you can succeed, but I won’t die. I won’t. Never have. I can take a shankin’ and keep on crankin’.”
Something shifted in the Sister’s eyes. Hesitation? Uncertainty? Helena was gonna jump all over that. “You were part of the gang shanking. How many times did you stab me? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? And look…” Helena opened her arms wide. “Here I am. You didn’t kill me then. And you can’t kill me now.”
The Sister’s top lip peeled back over her teeth, revealing two front teeth capped in gold. “Eighty-seven. I fucking stabbed you eighty-seven times. And that ain’t counting how many the others did.”
Helena smiled, but the expression was more of an I-told-you-so smile.
“Helena Grayse,” an officer called from outside the cell.
Her name hung in the air like a hot air balloon to salvation. The officer unlocked the cell.
Without taking her eyes off the Sister, she exited the space. Only when she was free and the door firmly locked behind her did she dare to turn her back on the Sister.
The officer impatiently motioned for her to walk in front of him. She followed his curt directions through the facility, finally stopping at a thick metal door. He unlocked it and motioned her into an empty waiting area. The only other person in the space was another officer behind a glass-enclosed window. The door clicked shut behind her, leaving her alone in the room.
What the heck was going on? Was she going to be charged? Sent to jail to await arraignment? She walked up to the window and waited while the officer pointedly avoided looking at her. It took everything inside her to not knock on the glass. But any demands she made would be met with resistance. It was a universal rule. If an inmate wanted something, the guard would do the opposite.
She watched the second hand of the clock behind the man and started counting. One. Two. Three. After she counted off 135 seconds, he glanced at her.
“I’m Helena Grayse,” she rushed to say before he looked away.
He grabbed a piece of paper out of a printer and shoved it at her through the slit in the glass.
RETURN OF PROPERTY.
She read the top line of the form again. RETURN OF PROPERTY.
She was being let go? Just like that?
“You need to sign it.” The officer spoke in a flat, toneless voice.
She grabbed the pen tethered to the desk and scribbled her name on the blank line, then slid it back to him. Two minutes later, she walked out the door of the police station a free woman. Not a word, not a thanks, not even a screw-you from Detective Brody.
It was late in the day, and the sky was a low shroud of gray. The kind of sky that made you feel lonely and depressed. Cold air snapped against her skin, but after breathing institutional air, it smelled pure and pleasant.
Now she had to find Thomas. Thomas. On the steps of the station, she closed her eyes and called his image to mind. She pictured him as he’d been that first night. In her little tent. The firelight from outside casting him in a bronze light. The kindness in his eyes. Him staring into her, seeing her damaged soul and not being repulsed.
Her body turned automatically, and she felt a tugging inside her chest as if her heart were a divining rod pointing the way to him.
Someone grabbed her arm. Adrenaline flashed through her, readying her body for a fight. Her eyes snapped open.
“Don’t make a scene,” CO Holbrook growled in her ear.
Helena forced herself not to fight or struggle. She had called him and Mrs. Ellis; she just hadn’t thought they’d show up.
He guided her down the sidewalk to an SUV idling at the curb and opened the back passenger door. “Get in.”
Mrs. Ellis sat there in the back, looking innocently bundled up for winter—except for the gun she aimed at Helena.
Flashes of memories played on a loop in Helena’s mind. Being in that bathroom with her. Her rage. Her pulling the trigger.<
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Self-preservation told Helena to run. Self-sacrifice told her to stay. This wasn’t about her. It was about Thomas. She’d lead Mrs. Ellis to Thomas, under the pretense of leading her to Malone. Everything else, she’d figure out on the way.
She climbed in and shut the door. CO Holbrook got in the driver’s side.
Mrs. Ellis looked exactly the same as she had right before she’d shot Helena—ravaged by grief. “Tell me this truth”—spit flew from her mouth—“you think I don’t know.”
Holbrook drove them out of the parking lot.
Helena’s body felt off-kilter, almost as if it were tilting to one side. But it was more than her body. It was an urge. She felt drawn, pulled, tugged in a different direction.
“Go that way.” Helena pointed to the direction where instinct told her to go. “That’s the way.”
Holbrook looked in the rearview mirror, awaiting Mrs. Ellis’s approval. The woman dipped her chin.
Holbrook followed her instructions. “So where are we going?”
“I don’t know.” Helena focused on the sensation inside her body, on making sure they were traveling in the right direction. Yes, they were. If someone pressed her to define how she knew it, she’d have no logical answer. It was a feeling more than anything. Almost an expectancy. As though she could sense the distance between her and Thomas diminishing.
“You playing games with us?” Holbrook used the tone that put fear in most of the inmates.
She tried to explain without being completely truthful. “I don’t know the address, but I know how to get there.”
Mrs. Ellis jabbed the gun at Helena like a bayonet. “Tell me the truth.”
“I. Didn’t. Kill. Rory.” No plainer way to say it.
“The hell you didn’t.” Mrs. Ellis pressed the barrel between Helena’s eyes, the metal cold and unforgiving. Helena didn’t flinch away, didn’t fight. Part of her realized she should be frightened that the woman would pull the trigger—the best predictor of future behavior was past behavior—but she could find no fear. Only a determination to keep herself alive long enough to find Thomas.
