Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption

by Jo Richardson

  I’d say something but the words inside my head aren’t quite forming a logical thought.

  Yet.

  “Unless you lied.” She waits a beat. “Did you lie to me, Stiles?” She readies her pen and paper for something to write.

  How did she get right up into my personal space so fast?

  “Like I’m gonna spill my guts to the woman who wouldn’t know the truth if it smacked her in the face.”

  I don’t fucking think so.

  “Is it another case? Or…” She thinks it over and a thought strikes her. “Are you actually following me?”

  Her hand lowers. “Because that’s harassment, Stiles. I do have a day job you know, and every right to-”

  “Jesus.” Enough with this shit. “No I am not fucking following you.”

  No way in hell am I telling her I’m here for Donnie, but what the fuck else am I supposed to do?

  My thoughts are, once again, drawn to Mikey.

  And I really hope he forgives me for this someday.

  “Tell ya what.” I take her by the shoulders and spin her around, then I point in the general direction of where my brother’s body was buried. “Take a walk about fifty or so feet in that direction, and have a nice fucking day.”

  I leave her there without a single look back to see if she went for the bait.

  “Stiles! I’m—”

  I don’t hear what it is she says. The door is closed and I’m in drive before she can finish.

  Deep breaths. I hear my therapist’s voice in my head. Which I ignore because screw breathing. I need a drink.

  I pull the last cig standing out of my pocket. It’s tempting. All I need to do is light it up and inhale. One puff and the stress of dealing with the smartest mouth in America would be over. Alas, I’m not giving in. Not today. And not over Emma motherfucking Green. So I hide the stick away again and move on to a very important decision I need to make. Lunch or work?

  I have zero appetite, between Donnie Leary’s funeral, Emma Green being Emma Green, and the warped adaptation of Jackson Stiles, this is your life that I was playing back there, so I head for the office.

  Let’s do this.

  X X X

  I know I said it’s my safe haven, but really, it’s mostly mindless paperwork I do at the office. Today, I’m thankful for it. Not only because it’s raining cats and fucking dogs outside, but it busies my brain and keeps me focused on what’s important. Getting paid. Something snooping around Donnie Leary’s fresh grave isn’t gonna get me.

  I solemnly swear to leave the police work to my brother.

  Most of the time.

  Hours upon hours go by. It’s been pouring for most of the day but the steady sound of rainfall has proven to be a sedative of sorts. I’ve gotten a lot of shit done, and I’m feeling pretty damn good about it as I file away the last manila folder, ready to call it a day.

  That is until the door creaks open in unison with the long, satisfying yawn I let out.

  Who in their right goddamn mind would be out in this shitty weather? And when did it get dark out?

  I stand and pull my jacket off the back of my chair while cracking my back as I call out to the potential client who just let himself in. “Gonna have to come back to—”

  Fuuuuuuuuck me.

  “—morrow.” I’m only able to get half of my arm into the sleeve of my jacket when I see the gun in the hand of a scrawny kid who’s pointing it at me. Who’s dripping fucking wet and getting water all over the floor I just paid an arm and a leg to get refinished.

  It’s official. Today I’m in hell.

  One of the cons to burying oneself in paperwork, you’re not paying attention to criminals as they slink into your workspace.

  “Whatcha got there, kid?”

  His hand is shaky. His expression─angry. Who knows if he’s planning on using that thing, but one wrong move and later for you, Stiles.

  He doesn’t answer. I may as well finish putting on my jacket.

  “Do I know you?” He looks a little familiar, aside from the wet dog look he’s got going on. It could be the tension of his expression. Then again, pretty much all the kids I’ve dealt with lately look like this. Mad at the world, scared shitless, haven’t showered in a few days.

  Even so…

  His eyes dart to the wad of cash I have sitting out on the desk. It’s been ready to be deposited for three days now. I have no idea why I haven’t taken it to the bank yet.

  Regardless, he can’t seriously think he’s faster than my ass.

  We lock eyes, and he gets it. No way in hell he’s taking the money. And he panics.

  “Hands up!” When he almost drops the gun, I pull the S&W out and point it at him before he can decide what to do next. In an unexpected move, he throws the damn thing at me and makes a run for the door.

  Which also isn’t fucking happening.

  Sorry about your luck, kid.

  On a whim, I abandon the shoot-first-ask-questions-later principle I’ve followed since being licensed and make a mad dash for the front door.

  “Gotcha.” Lightning hits close by and lights up the entire office as I pull him back in and throw him to the floor. Blood rushes through me like a freight train when I slam the door shut and put a shoe to his throat.

  I lock the door in case he’s got friends outside as back up.

  Upon better inspection, the kid doesn’t look much older than fifteen or sixteen. Unfortunate, considering the bandanna tied around his neck, which I’m currently stepping on, tells me he’s with a gang. His jeans are ripped like he’s only got the one pair, and his T-shirt’s even worse than the jeans.

  “You picked the wrong place to rob, dip-shit.”

  I grab him by the shirt so I can stand him upright before punching him square in the jaw, even if he is soaking wet and pathetic looking.

  “It’s not stealing if it wasn’t yours to begin with!” He swings for me and misses.

  “Yeah? Well, I don’t know where you got your information from, but that money,” I point to the desk, “is definitely mine.”

  He can’t be a collector. A) he’s too fucking small, and B) the only person I’m in deep with is Ricky, and that was more a gift than a loan. Pretty much.

  “Bullshit!” He wriggles and squirms, but he’s not going anywhere. “You took it. It’s not yours.” His breathing is erratic. The kid’s gonna have a heart attack if he doesn’t settle down.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” He’s got the wrong establishment, clearly.

  “You tricked him and took his money, then you killed him!” His voice is angry and loud, and in and out of working condition. “You killed him!”

  His words echo inside my head and now two memories haunt me when I hear them.

  My grip on him loosens as a burst of guilt rushes through me, landing square in my gut, right next to all the other not so great accomplishments in my life.

  “What’d you fucking say?”

  “Donnie. You said you just wanted to race, and he trusted you. And you screwed him over.” His eyes are on me now. Flat and dead.

  Not that he doesn’t have a point there, but I’m generally not one to give people the satisfaction of knowing that shit. Especially a little pissant causing mayhem in my fucking office.

  “And this is your business because?”

  He tries to catch his breath. It looks difficult for him. “He was my brother, asshole.”

  I take a step back, surprised by his declaration.

  “Just talk to me, Jackie.” Mikey’s voice tells me.

  “Don’t leave me here.” Donnie’s voice follows up.

  I keep my cool despite the fact that of all the confrontations I could’ve had at this particular moment, this is the worst one I can think of.

  Give me a no-name, random gang member looking for some payback any day. That I can handle. But a sibling? A younger sibling, no less, who looks like he hasn’t seen a day of experience out on the streets? How am I supposed to re
act to that?

  And we’re not talking about some guy who could even remotely take me, by the way. He might be hovering somewhere around five-nine, five-ten, a couple inches shorter than yours truly, but he’s only about a hundred-twenty, a hundred-thirty pounds, wet. Literally. I’m no heavyweight myself. I’m lean. I’m also mostly muscle. There’s a difference. I could breathe funny on this kid and he’d fall over.

  Now that he’s settled down and I’m not wrestling with him anymore, his expression falls.

  I’m lucky he didn’t pull the trigger to that gun on pure adrenaline.

  “What’s your name?”

  I give him some space, confident he’ll stay put for the time being. Then I sit my ass down on the corner of my desk and try to figure out where I’m planning on going with this, or why I care.

  “Stix.” He wipes his face with his sleeve and glares off at the wall. It’s not difficult to imagine why he’s called that. He looks like he’s walking on a couple stilts. But I’m not looking for what he’s known as out on the street.

  “Your real name.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Oh, I see. We’re playing it that way.

  Hatred oozes from him, which, let’s be honest here, it’s to be expected. I don’t have the patience for playing games or trying to calm the spirit of the angry little shit, though. So I retaliate by playing it my way.

  “Well, hey there, Fuck You, I’m Jackson. And this place of business is owned by, that’s right, me. On top of which, lucky you, I’ve got every fucking right to take you down to the Redemption City Police barracks and turn your ass in for trespassing, attempted burglary, and possibly even assault with a deadly weapon. What do you think you’d get for that, Fuck You?”

  His expression doesn’t change. He tries to come off as cool and uncaring, but I can see the way his entire body twitches at the thought of getting arrested.

  He’s nervous.

  He licks his lips and jerks his head away.

  I continue on.

  “’Cause maybe this isn’t your first carnival, Fuck You. So you’ll probably get somewhere around, oh, I don’t know, a couple years. Hard time. Maybe even a boyfriend this time.”

  I actually doubt he’s ever done time. It’s nice to give people the benefit of the doubt, though.

  The kid stays mum, but I can see his jaw tightening.

  It’s cool; I have a few more for him.

  “I hear the guys at State have a thing for skinny boys with pretty faces and tight asses.”

  “All right.” He cuts me off, angry I got the best of him, worried that I’m right. “Jesus.”

  I fold my arms when he doesn’t go any further than that.

  “I’m waiting, Fuck You.”

  “It’s Jimmy, all right? Jimmy Leary.”

  That’s called breaking your opponent, people.

  Sure, it was a bit harsh, considering he’s somewhere under the age of twenty-one, but he did enter my establishment with the intent to harm me. I needed to set the bar high.

  “Okay, Jimmy.”

  And, by the way, it’s not like I couldn’t have found that information out on my own or anything. I like to hear it from the perp’s mouth, so when push comes to shove, they can’t pull the old it wasn’t me bullshit.

  “Wanna tell me what you were planning on doing with that gun?” I nod over toward it still laying on the floor from when he winged it at me a few minutes ago.

  He shrugs. “Get some pay back. Get out of Redemption.”

  Forget about the pay back.

  “Why would you wanna get out of Redemption?”

  He shrugs again. This time he doesn’t answer me. He simply stares off at the corner of the office, exuding the angry teenager thing like it’s his job.

  He reminds me of a former me. Daring someone to give a shit. Not trusting them even if they did.

  I give him a minute while I walk around the desk and think.

  The envelope Jim Galley handed me the other night sits on top of the thousand I won racing Donnie. With the additional ten-K I landed from Redemption’s police force, I can afford to give Jimmy some, but not all of it. I’m gonna need to pay a few bills if I want to survive another month.

  “You know where you’re going?” I fan the money until it looks like I’ve gotten to about half, then I hand it to the kid.

  He looks disgusted knowing where it came from.

  “I’m sorry about what happened to your brother.”

  “You should be,” he spits as he snatches the cash out of my hand. He opens his mouth to say something else but stops himself.

  “What?”

  Jimmy shakes his head. “Fuck it.”

  “You talk to your mother with that mouth?” The kid laughs at my insinuation and shakes his head at me.

  “Don’t have a mother.” The way he says it isn’t enough to tell me whether he’s never had one or recently lost her. Either way… awesome.

  “Dad?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Grandparents? Uncles? Aunts? Godparent?”

  Old girlfriend?

  A teenaged-type huff answers that one for me.

  So now I’m not only dealing with attempted burglary and assault with a deadly weapon, but he’s got no goddamn legal guardian either. Thanks to me.

  I don’t need this shit. But I don’t need him thinking I pulled the trigger, either.

  “I didn’t kill your brother.”

  He spits an unconvinced huff at me. “Then who did?”

  I’m not about to tell him my theories. This isn’t something a minor needs to get involved with.

  “I don’t know.”

  Red and blue lights flash outside as a cruiser passes by, and Jimmy hits the floor. It’s not something that strikes me as odd, I mean, hellooooo, gangbanger, but still, inquiring minds want to know.

  “Someone looking for you, kid?”

  He checks to make sure the cops have moved along before he stands up again. He wipes his jeans but doesn’t answer me.

  “If you’re worried about certain criminals coming after you, don’t. Whatever Donnie did to deserve a bullet had nothing to do with you. It’s over.”

  Thomas Flint doesn’t generally hold grudges against family members and friends. It’s some warped version of a code he lives by.

  “I’m not running from Flint.” Funny he knows the exact person I’m talking about, though, right?

  “Then who?”

  And the shrugging with this kid. I know I didn’t shrug this much when I was his age.

  “Fine.” I’m done playing Doctor fucking Phil here. “You know what? I don’t really wanna know, anyway. Good luck.”

  He doesn’t exactly look at me when he tells me, “He thought you were a good guy, ya know. Said he had a good feeling about you.”

  Ouch.

  I asked for that, I guess.

  “And you would know that how, exactly?”

  “I was at the race.” I should have known. Now I’m getting his full attention. “He almost felt bad taking your money.”

  Turns out the kid didn’t need to shoot me with that gun. He’s doing a fine job of stabbing me in the chest with his words.

  “’Course, that was before you beat him. And then turned him in.”

  See what I mean?

  “Hey, if you didn’t… you know…”

  Murder his brother. That’s what he’s getting at.

  “Maybe you could help me.” Now that’s a laugh. He doesn’t even fucking know me. “And figure out what really happened to him. Thomas didn’t have a beef with him. He was getting out. Everyone knew it.”

  “Can’t.” I tell him flat out.

  “Why?”

  “Case is closed, kid. There’s nothing to help with.”

  He lets out a bitter sigh. “Maybe you didn’t kill him,” he tells me. “but you made it possible for someone else to. Helping me is the least you could do.”

  Is he kidding me with this shit?

  Li
ke I need another guilt trip today.

  “You wanna know what the least I could do is?”

  It’s a rhetorical question. I answer it, regardless. “The least I could do is not turn you in for pulling a fucking gun on me tonight.”

  His face says it all. In fact it perfectly matches his brothers disappointed expression the night I handed him over to RPD.

  “Whatever, I’m out of here.” He pushes some of his dirty blond hair out of his face and starts to go. He leaves the gun. It’s probably not his anyway.

  This is the part where I let him leave, forget about him and his brother and the fact that nine times out of ten under-aged kids trying to go it alone are dead within a year.

  That’s the smart thing to do. That, and distancing myself from this situation as fast as possible.

  Easy peasy. I’ll be done with the Learys, and I can get on with my fucking life.

  Only lately, I’m not all that smart. And Donnie Leary’s easy grin keeps sneaking its way into my head, reminding me of what a goddamn idiot I was to leave him in the first place.

  “Hold on.” I stop him at the last possible moment.

  I’m at two parts hoping he ignores me, one part hoping he doesn’t.

  His hand is on the door knob. His feet remain still.

  Last chance.

  “I might know a guy who can help you get out of Redemption, undetected. Regardless of who you’re running from.”

  He lets go of the knob.

  “It might take a couple days.” I don’t plan on pushing him about who he’s trying to get away from. Something tells me I don’t wanna know.

  The kid tries to stay cool about my offer, but I see the twitching in the sides of his mouth, the relief in his body language as he takes a step back into the office, and the hope in his eyes.

  All surefire signs that I’m probably gonna regret this shit.

  He closes the door, and that’s that.

  I’m officially involved. Awesome.

  “How did you even find out where I work, anyway?” He plops down onto the sofa, which is great because now the sofa’s gonna be soaking fucking wet, too.

  “I saw you at the funeral today. Bummed a ride from a buddy of mine and followed you back here.” He’s still shivering. I grab a towel from the bathroom and toss it over to him. Can’t have the kid getting pneumonia, now can we? I can’t afford my own doctor's bill much less his.