Transparency

by Charles Royce

  TRANSPARENCY

  By Charles Royce

  Chutter Hill Publishing

  Nashville, TN

  Copyright © 2021 by Chutter Hill Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This novel, Transparency, is the second book of a trilogy. The first book, Naive, offers background on the murder alluded to throughout the first few chapters, while the finale, Sync, will bring all stories to a climactic end.

  This edition of Transparency copyright © 2021 by Chutter Hill Publishing

  Edited by Jamie Chavez.

  Excerpt from Sync copyright © 2021 by Chutter Hill Publishing

  Published in the United States of America.

  Names: Royce, Charles, author

  Title: Transparency, a novel / by Charles Royce

  ISBN: 978-1-7343357-2-9

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Sync by Charles Royce. This excerpt has been written for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the upcoming edition.

  For my mother,

  who I miss every single day.

  GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT TO:

  To Matt Moran, my confidant, my friend. Always encouraging me to dream higher, reach for the impossible. Watching you do the same is a constant source of inspiration for me and so many others.

  To Ruben and Tim, your positivity and creative drive make me want to do more, be more.

  To my beautiful partner of seven (!) years now. Chris, you are my safe space, my rock. I love you more than you will ever know.

  To the people of New York City. My life was forever changed there, and I’m still enjoying the fruits of your labor. I will never forget the beautiful people who showed me a better way of life.

  To my editor and friend Jamie Chavez. Your tireless efforts are all over this trilogy. I don’t know what I’d do without you (and the margin notes). Here’s to many more!

  C h a p t e r 1

  “BABY, BABY, WAKE up.”

  “What? What is it?” Micah’s eyes open to darkness. He feels a hand squeezing his. “What’s happening?”

  Lennox squeezes tighter. “There’s someone in the house.”

  Micah looks around, to his left, to his right. He can’t distinguish shapes. Or color. He blinks. His sight moves in and out of focus, the emptiness of his surroundings flickering like glitches. Suddenly he sees a muscular male silhouette coming toward their bed. The figure is translucent, outlined in light, pulsing and glowing as it moves.

  The man holds up a knife and thrusts forward.

  “No!” Micah screams.

  He can feel Lennox’s hand begin to crush his own.

  The ominous figure continues to jab.

  “No! Noo! Nooo!”

  THE SOUND OF his own cries awakens him. Micah reaches for his husband’s hand, slapping at the sheets with the back of the palm. No one is there.

  He wipes his eyes, his abs contracting as he leans forward. He looks around the bedroom of their condo—the New York Post lying on his nightstand, headline reading “KILLER STILL FREE?” with a giant photo of himself superimposed on another of Lennox lying dead and butchered on their living room floor; photos of the two of them in 5x7 frames resting facedown on the dresser; the floor-to-ceiling windows inviting a distraction from his nightmare.

  Completely naked except for his woolen socks, he walks to the far window and looks out onto early morning Manhattan. The Lower East Side is beginning to bustle with movement. As the church bell tower rings seven times, he hears children screaming as he watches them prance their way to PS 001; businessmen and women ducking into Ubers and limousines; the ladies of Chinatown in identical poses, in various puffy coats, easing into their morning tai chi.

  Life is continuing, even in the dead of winter.

  His eyes shift to Jenna’s condo building, the rubble still strewn about the street, police tape expanding about thirty feet around the destruction. Micah takes his fingers to his wavy blond hair and throws it back in place like a whiskey shot.

  Even from a distance, he locks eyes with a man walking in front of Jenna’s building—dirty blond hair, crew cut, handsome from what he can tell. He thinks he recognizes him and tracks him with a prolonged stare. The man immediately looks away, continues walking.

  Micah unplugs his phone from the charger.

  C h a p t e r 2

  “HAYLEE, THANK YOU,” Micah says. “Thank you for calling me back.”

  “Sorry I missed you earlier,” she says. “This morning sickness has been a little overwhelming. Shawn had to literally pick me up from the bathroom floor not twenty minutes ago.”

  “God, that must be awful.”

  “What’s the matter, hon? You sounded a bit frantic on your message. How are you holding up?”

  “Not good.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Had the strangest dream. Lennox was still alive.”

  “It must be awful for you being back there. All those memories.”

  “It’s worse than I thought,” he says. “Sorry if I’m bothering you.”

  “Not at all. Shawn just left, and I was just about to get ready for—” She clicks her tongue. “Heyyy, I was going to have to go by myself to my doctor’s appointment, you wanna come with? Please? It’ll give us a chance to talk.”

  “Sure.”

  “Really?”

  “I could use the company.” Micah looks out of the window again.

  “Me too. First appointment since I found out I was preggo. Just a checkup, but still.”

  “I get it. I’d love to.”

  “Thank you, it’s at nine a.m., here in Brooklyn. Meet me here at the house a little earlier?”

  “What is it, 7:30 now?” He checks his phone. “Yep. I’ll hop in the shower, take the F. I’ll be at your place in an hour, tops.”

  “God, I love you,” she says.

  C h a p t e r 3

  “GOD, NOT THE brick again.”

  Shawn Connelly is familiar with this place. Just a few short months ago he’d been introduced to the NYPD Seventh District Precinct building after his best friend Lennox was stabbed to death in his home. He remembers walking up these steps to meet with Lennox’s husband Micah, shortly after he was arrested for the murder. Knowing Micah could never commit such a crime, Shawn gladly took the case. And won.

  A high-profile defense attorney and an amateur architectural snob, Shawn has always been judgmental about style and construction, and the brutalist expanse of unthinking brick on both the exterior and interior of this particular building still causes his blood to boil, despite the late-January weather hovering just above freezing.

  Before he can completely take off his overcoat, Shawn sees Detective Bronson Penance.

  “Back so soon?” Detective Penance winks.

  “Not willingly,” Shawn says. He flops his coat over his briefcase and follows Detective Penance down the hall. “But curious to see what this is about.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  The detective places his hand on the doorknob to the holding room.

  “Hey, before we go in there,” Shawn says, “how’s your partner?”

  “Lily? Made a lot of progress in the past forty-eight hours. Lost all movement in her right hand, but the left one should be fine. Doctors say it could be a while though. We already miss her around here, not that we’re keeping her on.”

  “Not keeping her on?”

  “She violated protocol, almost got herself killed,” Penance replies. “Too green. She has to go. I know that sounds heartless.” />
  “Wow. That’s … is she talking about anything? About what happened in that apartment?”

  “Oh yeah, she’s talking.” The detective looks at his watch. “Right about now she’s doing an interview with Press. I told her it was too soon.”

  “Press? The political magazine?”

  “You think it’s political because we’re entering an election cycle, but no, Press covers current events. Lily was the victim of the pricks involved in Lennox Holcomb’s murder, one of the highest-profile murders of the decade. Unfortunately for us.”

  “Unfortunate for all of us,” Shawn says. “Happy she’s talking and doing better. How are you holding up?”

  “Lots of changes around here. They’re probably transferring me. Union Square.”

  “To investigate the other murder?”

  “To continue it, yes. They’re at an impasse. Still no definitive leads, just suspects. They’re not moving as quickly as we did.”

  “Smart.”

  Detective Penance ignores the jab, puts his hand back on the doorknob. “I’ll be in the next room. You ready?”

  “I got this.”

  C h a p t e r 4

  JENNA STARES AT a distorted reflection in the two-way mirror adjacent to her. She doesn’t look at Shawn as he enters the holding room.

  Shawn sees Jenna in person for the first time since the trial, sitting in a small bistro chair in front of a piss-green shellacked table. She’s in navy scrubs, her shirt reading “PRECINCT VII” embroidered in white dangly thread.

  Shawn sneers first. “Quite the wardrobe change, huh?”

  She folds her arms.

  He looks back and forth to Jenna and the male figure to her left. “What’s he doing here?”

  Josh Harrison sits beside her in street clothes, his hands on a red folder.

  Jenna turns to Josh. Josh looks back at her. She turns away.

  Shawn notices the simple glance held an entire conversation. He places his briefcase down and stands before them. “Is anyone gonna tell me what’s going on here?”

  Josh answers. “We’d like to start off by—”

  “Oh, piss off. I was talking to Jenna.”

  “I’m sorry, when you said ‘anyone’ I thought you actually—”

  “Jenna, are you gonna say anything?” Shawn thrusts his open hands upward at his waist.

  “Shawn, settle down a second,” Josh says. “I’m sure you have lots of ques—”

  “So nothing, Jenna?” Shawn ignores Josh once again. “No ‘I’m sorry for what I did to your best friend’? ‘I’m sorry I stabbed Lennox thirty-three times and left him for dead so that his husband could find him’? ‘I’m sorry Micah was almost put away for life for something I did’?”

  Josh taps his fingers on his folder. “Shawn, we have—”

  “Dude, stop calling me Shawn. I barely know you.” Shawn picks up his briefcase. “Jenna, I came down here because I really thought you’d try to explain all of this, to shed some fucking light on this plan you carried out. Clearly I was wrong. I’m leaving unless you speak up right now.”

  Jenna glances up to briefly meet Shawn’s eyes but continues to slump. She knows Shawn thinks she’s guilty of killing his best friend, and based on Shawn’s demeanor thus far, she’s not quite sure she and Josh can convince him otherwise.

  She clears her throat but can’t find the words.

  Josh notices.

  “This was a mistake,” he says to her.

  “Ya think?” Shawn turns around and begins to walk toward the door. He jerks himself back around. “You know, I was at home just now with Haylee, who’s been throwing up all morning. While I was holding her hair back not forty-five minutes ago, you know what? She was talking about you, Jenna. She said there was no way Jenna Ancelet coulda done this by herself. She convinced me I should take you up on this meeting.”

  “And Jenna and I want to thank—”

  “Haylee assured me there was an explanation, this thing you both couldn’t wait to tell me. Me? I didn’t believe it. At Micah’s trial, I may have pointed to several coincidences that made you look guilty of Lenny’s murder in order to save my client, but I would have never thought it was true. Now? With the mountain of evidence pointing in your direction, I have no doubt at all.”

  Josh tries again. “Mr. Connelly, if you’ll just listen to me, to us, I feel—”

  “But you know what? I came anyway.” Shawn never stops talking directly to Jenna. “Why? To make my wife happy. That’s it. That’s the only reason. Now I have to go home and tell Haylee, my beautiful, loving, pregnant wife that she was wrong. Stop with the destruction, Jenna. You’ve done enough.”

  Shawn sees another exchange of glances between Jenna and Josh.

  Jenna shakes her head.

  “I think we can all agree I’m not the right fit for this,” Shawn says. “I can recommend others who might be willing to take your case, or whatever it is you two have conjured up.”

  He jerks open the door and exits, the sounds of his boots stomping down the hall.

  Josh taps his hands on the table to the beat of Shawn’s shoes until the door closes all the way.

  “That didn’t go the way we’d hoped,” Josh says.

  “I can’t do this.” Jenna finally speaks.

  “We have to. He’s the only one who can help us.”

  “He’s so angry.”

  A loud knock echoes through the holding room. Detective Penance opens the door and enters halfway. “Time’s up, Mr. Harrison. As agreed, I let you both see Mr. Connelly together. Now I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  The detective leaves the door open for Josh to exit.

  “I’ll be back,” Josh says to Jenna. He grabs the red folder on the way out.

  C h a p t e r 5

  OUTSIDE THE PRECINCT building, Josh sees Shawn entering a black Mercedes SUV, runs to the driver’s side and taps on the window.

  Startled, Shawn jerks away, then immediately puts his head down on the steering wheel. After a few seconds, he pushes the door unlock button.

  Josh walks around to the passenger side, opens the door.

  “The thing about Jenna,” Josh says as he pulls himself up onto the seat with his free hand. He closes the passenger door, presses the lock button, places the red folder in his lap. “She gets triggered by boisterous breeders like yourself.”

  Shawn presses the unlock button. “Get out.”

  “What happened here?” Josh puts his finger on the windshield, running his fingers along the spider crack that extends vertically up the glass.

  Shawn is annoyed, but the question softens him. He thinks of his wife, of that awful day when she saw Ghost at the carwash. “Haylee. She went to get the car washed and saw Ghost working there.”

  “The drug dealer guy? Blown up in Jenna’s apartment?”

  “The drug dealer Jenna blew up in her apartment. The drug dealer Jenna worked with to kill Lennox.”

  “Mr. Connelly, come on. That’s absurd.”

  Shawn releases his grip on the steering wheel and glances again at the glass in front of Josh. “My wife recognized him. Ghost. At the car wash. Ghost saw her take a picture of him. At the time, we both suspected he was the one who killed Lennox.”

  “Still coulda been.”

  Shawn sighs. “We called the police, sent them to find Ghost. I guess you could say we’re the ones who sent the detective’s partner Lily to his apartment to interrogate him. Then he crucified her to the back of the door. I need this nightmare to end.”

  “No.” Josh recognizes the strange mix of regret, culpability, and exhaustion. “Hey, look at me. What happened to Lily McGuire is not your fault, man.”

  “I know that.” Shawn looks back at him. “It’s Jenna’s.”

  “There you go again.” Josh pulls the folder closer to him. “You may think that Jenna did all this, but she isn’t who you think she is.”

  “Oh yeah, and who do I think Jenna is?”

  “I think
you see her as some spoiled rich kid who dresses in designer clothes, who skates through life with sitcom humor and mixed metaphors. Maybe to you, she lacks credibility.”

  “Go on.”

  “You think she’s untrustworthy, that she moves wherever the wind blows, or toward whatever shiny thing grabs her attention. And maybe you think she’s damaged in some way. I mean, why else would she have all us gays in her life, right? Me, Lennox, Micah?”

  “Don’t you dare stereotype me.”

  “I’m not, just bear with me. I’m just saying, you don’t really know someone until you do.”

  “Do what?”

  “Know them.” Josh moves the folder to the floor of the car and twists his whole body toward Shawn. “Jenna was attacked, Shawn. College campus, NYU, 2007. By a former boyfriend.”

  Shawn fidgets in his seat, turns a bit toward Josh. “Sad, but no excuse for a murder.”

  “Jenna’s parents own a dairy farm in rural France. They don’t make much money, but they saved up enough to send her to school in America. To be a lawyer. She got a partial scholarship to NYU; her parents scraped by to take care of the rest. She was so excited to be at NYU, got involved with Young Lawyers, met a boy she really liked. Her new boyfriend was nice at first, but then became abusive. First verbally, then physically. Beat the living shit out of her. Later she found out he’d been cheating on her with several different women the entire three years they were together.”

  “Jesus.”

  “She left the guy. Broke it off completely. Moved in with a friend. Tracy Heissman. You may know her—tall, former model. I used to represent her when I was an agent for Corps Agency New York. Beautiful girl, beautiful friend. Anyway, Tracy works at Élan now too. Press magazine.”

  “Heard of Tracy Heissman, yes, but I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

  “Jenna doesn’t talk about it, but Tracy told me what happened soon after. This guy, this son of a bitch, broke into the apartment when Tracy wasn’t there, and that’s when it happened. Forced himself on Jenna. She fought. He fought back better.”