Unrevealed

by Laurel Dewey

  Jane felt the knot tighten in her gut. “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t remember all of them…but…” Courtney closed her eyes. “Yes…I do recall you standing in front of me with your hand reaching out toward me.” With her eyes still closed, she held out her hand, illustrating the pose. “And what was it you were saying in the dream to me? Oh, it’s right there on the tip of my mind’s eye; why can’t I remember it?”

  Jane checked the clock on the wall. 1:50. Ten minutes to closing time. She caught the eye of the bartender, who stared back at her with growing anxiety. Courtney opened her eyes. Jane quickly turned away from the bartender.

  “Isn’t that just the craziest thing, Jane?” Courtney nervously played with the sliver of lemon, bringing it to her lips and biting off a bit. But as she did it, the lemon slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor. “Oh, butterfingers!”

  “Let me get it,” Jane insisted. She slid off the stool and reached down to pick up the lemon. Her eyes rested on Courtney’s left pant leg, which was tucked into the fur-trimmed white boots. A scarlet swath of fresh blood encircled the section of her pant leg right above the boot. Jane uneasily sat back onto the barstool. “Courtney? There’s a lot of blood on your pant leg. Are you hurt?”

  Courtney casually took a sip of her martini. “Are you sure?” she asked, never looking down. Jane nodded. “That’s odd. I don’t even feel it.” She turned to the mirror that framed the bar. “You know what? I don’t really feel anything.”

  Jane gingerly touched Courtney’s sleeve. “Did Craig do that? Is that how this night started for you?”

  An unnatural glaze washed over her countenance. “Oh, Jane. It doesn’t matter. Really, honey…it doesn’t matter…”

  Jane pressed Courtney’s sleeve to try to create a connection with her, but it was useless. “But it does matter, Courtney. Is that how it all started?”

  Courtney turned to Jane, still distant but harboring a layer of agitation. “How what started, Jane?”

  Jane stared at her. “Would you walk outside with me?”

  A suspicious glower crept across her eyes. “Why?”

  “I gotta get some air.”

  Courtney glanced down to the bar. “I’m sorry, Jane, but I can’t go with you. I have other plans.” She slid her right hand into her jacket pocket.

  Jane heard the distinct click of a handgun being cocked. Her heart pounded. “Oh, fuck. Courtney, come on. What are you doing?”

  Courtney tilted her head. An errant strand of hair fell across her cheek; she allowed it to linger on her moist skin. “Jane…Jane…Jane. I have no choice. I can’t play the game any longer.” She stopped, lost in thought. “My kids… my beautiful children — I know the son-of-a-bitch touched Megan. Not like he touches me. She gets the soft hand. I get the fist.”

  “I’ll get you help,” Jane urged. “You walk out of here with me, I’ll get you help.”

  “Dear, dear, Jane…” Courtney twisted her hand in her jacket pocket to force the butt of the concealed gun into her gut. “You have no idea.”

  “No, Courtney, I do.” She carefully slipped off the barstool and stood next to the bar. “Look, I’ve had a shitty night so far. I don’t need to cap it off with you…capping yourself off.”

  Courtney momentarily looked blank, and then, as if a switch went off, she broke into uproarious laughter. “Oh, Jane! You enjoy such a humorous twist to the English language!”

  Jane reached out toward her. “Please give me the gun, Courtney.”

  Courtney’s laughter quickly ceased as a realization surfaced. “It’s like the dream, Jane. Just now, you standing there like that, with your hand reaching toward me. Remember the dream I told you about? This here, right now, is it manifested in real life.” She cocked her head. “Or is this a dream? I feel so very foggy, Jane.” Courtney slid the revolver from her jacket pocket and, using the business end of the gun, itched her temple. The bartender could be heard slowly walking away in the background. “Huh…,” she said, her eyes losing focus.

  “What is it?” Jane carefully asked.

  “I just realized that I don’t remember how I got to this bar.”

  “Give me the gun, Courtney. Please?”

  “How did I get here, Jane?”

  “Courtney! Give me the gun.”

  Courtney disappeared into herself. “I drove,” she muttered distantly. “How peculiar…”

  “Please…give…me…the…gun,” Jane pleaded.

  Courtney stared at Jane, her eyes housing the specter of chaos. “Are you my friend, Jane?” She traced tiny circles in her cheek with the tip of the gun.

  Jane let out a soft sigh. “Sure.”

  Courtney dove into Jane’s eyes, searching for honesty. “I do believe you are being forthright with me, Jane Perry. Thank you.” Courtney lowered the handgun but still held onto it. She regarded it for a moment as if she were seeing it for the first time. “My, my…” With that, Courtney quietly rested the gun on the bar.

  Jane grabbed a napkin and, gingerly lifting the weapon, ejected the waiting bullet in the chamber and dumped the clip into her palm.

  Courtney turned to the clock. “It’s after two. The bartender left.” Her voice was remote. “I guess we overstayed our welcome.” She patted the perspiration from her forehead. “Is it hot in here to you, Jane?”

  Jane felt her heart race as she placed the unloaded gun back onto the bar. “No, Courtney.”

  “Oh, it is to me.” With that, she removed her jacket and plopped it onto the bar. Underneath, her petal pink turtleneck was covered with thick splatters of blood. Courtney let out a relieved breath. “Oh, much better!”

  Jane drew Courtney’s jacket toward her, placing it over the gun on the bar. “Courtney?” she said quietly.

  Courtney’s eyes drifted into another realm.

  Jane moved her body so that she was in line with Courtney’s gaze. “Courtney?” she repeated, this time with more urgency. Their eyes met. “You have to hear this. I processed a horrible crime scene tonight. The same one that Cynthia Taylor was reporting on the Channel 9 news? The one you saw on the TV when you came into this bar?” Courtney stared at Jane, nonplussed. “I found Craig in the living room. He was shot twice in the head and three times in the groin.”

  Courtney furrowed her brow. “No…”

  “Megan was in her bed, shot once in the forehead. The two boys were in their beds, both shot once.”

  Courtney shook her head as her lip began to quiver. “What? It’s a mistake…You are mistaken, Jane.”

  Jane felt herself breathing shallowly. “No, Courtney. I’m not mistaken.” She weighed her words carefully. “It was graphic…and it was purposeful.…”

  Courtney looked off to the side. First there was no visible emotion and then a single tear emerged from her right eye, drifting awkwardly down her moist cheek and disappearing into the pink turtleneck. “I…,” she paused, looking lost. “I couldn’t leave the boys without a father or their sister. That wouldn’t be right. So…I had no choice.…” She turned to Jane. “They were asleep. So was Megan. Craig was awake though. I made damn sure of that. I wanted to make certain he saw me. I wanted him to understand what was about to happen. I told him that he would never hurt me again and that Megan would never get hurt again either.”

  “You didn’t need to kill Megan.”

  “Oh, yes, I did.” Courtney’s voice was calm and blunt. “She was damaged goods. Just like I am. Who would love her, Jane? She was tainted by her own father.… I did what I did to her out of a mother’s love.”

  Jane regarded Courtney with cautious disgust. “Courtney, I came to this bar tonight to arrest you. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in the court of law.…”

  “Silent?” Courtney’s voice rose several octaves. “I don’t want to be silent, Jane! Silence is what got me where I am right now. I want to scream, Jane!” She flung her arms in the air, moving erratically around the
bar. “I want everyone to know what happened to me…what happened to my daughter.…”

  Jane backed away from Courtney, giving the woman distance to vent. “You have the right to speak to an attorney,” Jane pressed on. “If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you — ”

  Courtney ambled closer to the bar, still waving her arms in the air. “I can afford the best goddamned attorney in the state of Colorado!”

  Jane heard the click of the bar’s front door opening and two sets of soft footsteps issuing forth. Courtney seemed unaware of the swift visitors. Jane needed to wrap things up here quickly. Pulling her handcuffs from her back pocket, she slowly walked toward Courtney. “Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you, Courtney?”

  Courtney turned toward the bar, her back to Jane. “Oh, it’s clear, honey!” She looked at the butt of her gun poking from underneath her jacket. “Deliriously clear!” Courtney grabbed the gun off the bar and swerved back around, arm outstretched toward Jane.

  Jane instinctively reached for her Glock but screamed to the two others, now hidden in the folds of darkness. “No! Hold your fire!”

  But her order and the deafening sound of 9-millimeter rounds merged. Two rounds punctured Courtney’s already blood-splattered turtleneck and the third entered the side of her neck, slamming Courtney’s body against the bar.

  “Her gun isn’t loaded!” Jane yelled. “Her gun is not fucking loaded!”

  Two cops wearing heavy vests emerged from the darkened corner of the bar. One of them approached Jane. “She pointed a fucking gun at you! How in the hell are we supposed to know it’s not loaded?!”

  “Suicide by cop,” the other officer mumbled.

  Jane stared at Courtney. Her body slid from the bar onto the floor, her frail hand still clutching the toothless handgun. There was a sudden flutter of movement in her right eye. Jane quickly moved to Courtney. She knelt down beside her, cradling her head in one hand while pointlessly trying to stop the gush of blood from her neck with the other hand. A look of peace came over the dying woman as a thin smile crept across her pale, blood-laced face. She finally allowed the empty gun to slip from her hand. “Things aren’t always what they seem, huh, Jane?” she stammered. As her eyes rolled back into her head, she whispered, “Lucky…lucky for me tonight…”

  Courtney’s death was called at 2:09 a.m. One by one, an onslaught of Denver PD reps and officers emerged from the shadows outside and filled the bar with their murmuring chatter. Jane stood back from the crush of suits and badges. Someone handed her a large cloth napkin to wipe Courtney’s blood from her hand. She heard, “Sorry, Jane,” and, “The woman gave us no choice,” but their words fell like bricks.

  Jane ducked outside the bar and stood under the crimson glare of Bloody Mary’s neon sign. Lighting a cigarette, she took a deep drag, waiting for the nicotine to numb and grant her a few seconds of solitude. But the solitude never came. A gust of frosty wind brushed hard against Jane’s body. She pulled her leather jacket tighter across her chest. The crunch of snow bit fangs of ice into her boots. A couple shots of Jack sounded so damn good at that moment. Yes, that would warm and soothe her twisting gut. But she was a recovering drunk, and she was standing there shivering outside of a bar after closing on a cold Denver night.

  Things aren’t always what they seem.

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  Hello readers,

  I wanted you to be the first to know that you’re going to meet a new character soon that is not connected to Jane Perry.

  Hold on! Before you get concerned that I’m ignoring Jane, rest assured that she will reappear in the summer of 2012 with the fourth book in her series. But before that, there’s a new woman in town who I think will capture your heart.

  Her name is Betty Craven. Like Jane, she lives in Colorado (although she hails from Texas). She doesn’t solve crimes or talk like a sailor, but, she is tough. She has to be for what she experiences in her story.

  Why did I create Betty Craven? Just like Jane Perry, Betty’s character came to me from my own life experiences. While I am not Jane Perry, I am also not Betty Craven. However, both of these women and I share aspects that I think a lot of other women can relate to.

  Over the last twelve months, I turned fifty, my mother died, and I witnessed a lot of people around me desperately fighting for what they thought was important to them. Some of those people lost everything, including their will to live. Others opted to completely transform themselves and bravely stepped outside their protective boxes and lived life from a new and much more honest perspective. Because they allowed their belief systems to change, they found an exhilarating freedom they’d never encountered. As I watched this profound transformation, I found a provocative sense welling up inside of me. A rebellion. A need to explore why I do what I do and think what I think.

  I started asking myself the questions that I believe a lot of people start asking themselves when they realize they have more years behind them than in front of them. Am I happy? Are my belief systems based on my own reality or someone else’s that I’ve blindly agreed to? Is life inherently tough or is it tough because you believe it has to be in order to succeed? Am I living my life too close to the vest? If so, is it time to rethink that? What are my greatest fears and how can I overcome them? These are only a few of the deep questions I posed to myself and ruminated on for quite some time.

  And before long, Betty Craven was born. These themes and many others are featured in her story, which will probably be controversial to some readers who have fixed ideas. What Betty Craven does and why she does it, transforms her deeply and alters her life forever.

  I hope that just as you have taken Jane Perry under your collective wings, you will also invite Betty Craven into your life. I know she’s waiting to meet you.

  Laurel Dewey

  Meet Betty when Laurel Dewey’s new novel goes on sale from The Story Plant in early 2012.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  The Story Plant

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  Copyright © 2009, 2011 by Laurel Dewey

  eISBN : 978-1-611-88024-3

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  First Story Plant Paperback Printing: October 2011