B00CCYP714 EBOK (16 page)

“Would you prefer a female ask you questions?” Rainey asked, aware a strange man in this woman’s space might be upsetting.

“No, he’s fine. He kind of reminds me of my brother, and somehow that is comforting.”

“You’re going to need to call your brother or someone and stay with them for a few days. The police are going to seal the crime scene to collect evidence,” Rainey said, standing to go. “You shouldn’t stay by yourself for a while. It helps to have someone close by, someone you can trust, so you can rest. It’s important to get as much normal sleep as possible. Let your body and mind heal.”

“Is that how you got through it? That blond woman you live with, did she help you?”

Rainey tilted her head in question.

“I confess,” the woman said shyly. “I watch Cookie Kutter’s show. I was watching last night. That’s how I knew you would be here.” She pointed at the gold band on Rainey’s left ring finger. “The blonde is your wife, right?”

Rainey smiled. “Yes, Katie is my wife. And to answer your question, we helped each other through it. She is a survivor, too.” Rainey reached into the small breast pocket inside her jacket and pulled out a card. “She runs a center for women and children in need of a safe place, should you require one. They also have counseling and legal advocates available, or if you just want someone to talk to, or a safe place to sit quietly and look at the water. Whatever you need, they can help. This card has all the info. Call this number anytime, day or night. Someone will always answer.”

Rainey reached for the pen on the bedside table. She wrote her private number on the back, a rare occasion, but she thought this woman might need it, if for no other reason than to know Rainey cared enough to give it to her.

“I won’t hold watching Cookie’s show against you. This is my private cellphone number. Call me if you need anything, or you just need to talk.” Rainey held out the card and winked. “If Cookie gets this number, I’m coming looking for you.”

The woman took the card, clasping Rainey’s hand as she did. “Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.”

Rainey squeezed the woman’s hand. “I lived life after my attack like I should have died, like my life wasn’t worth as much anymore. I wasted time living like that. Don’t let that happen to you. I promise you, every day will get easier. Remember, surviving was the only thing that mattered.”

Rainey was at the door when the woman spoke, causing her to turn around. “Alana. My name is Alana Minott. It was a pleasure to meet you, Rainey Bell.”

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Alana Minott. Take care.”

Rainey stepped into the hallway. Two uniformed officers were with the SANE nurse, who looked puzzled.

“You can go in now. She’s ready,” Rainey said to her, but the nurse just stared.

“Rainey Bell?”

Rainey turned to the officer, confused. “Yes, I’m Rainey Bell.”

The other officer stepped behind Rainey and grabbed one of her wrists. “Put your hands behind your back,” he said.

She was too stunned to resist, when Rex King stepped into the hallway from the next room over. “Rainey Blue Bell, alias Caroline Marie Herndon, you are under arrest for the murder of Bernard “Bobo” Jackson.”

Rainey was paraded out of the hospital in cuffs, under the glare of Cookie Kutter’s camera lights. “Did you kill Bernard Jackson to cover up your involvement in the Dalton Chambers murder?” Cookie shouted.

Rainey glared at her, but remained silent. She was led to her car, where Katie and Ernie were standing with other officers. There was a small crowd of onlookers gathering. Rainey recognized some of the medical personnel from Mackie’s trauma room last night. Detective Gardner was there, holding a purse and looking utterly dismayed.

Katie, phone pressed to her ear, was not happy. As soon as Rainey was close enough, she started talking fast. “Rainey, I let them in the car, because they had a warrant and Molly said I had to. She’s on her way. I’m trying to keep them from impounding the car.”

Rainey tried to sound calm. “It’s okay, Katie. Let them do what they have to do.” She turned to Ernie. “Take her home. Make sure she’s safe and tell Junior he has to watch Mackie’s back.”

“Ms. Meyers, I’m going to need a statement from you,” Rex said.

“Here’s your statement—” Katie began, and then paused to listen to her phone. “My attorney says she’ll make arrangements for me to come in and give a statement, but at the moment, she is advising very strongly against me telling you what a little weasel you are.”

Rainey laughed, which caused Rex to jerk her toward the waiting police cruiser and hand her off to a female officer. “Book her on suspicion of first degree murder, and make damn sure she’s read her rights at every turn. This one is by the book. No mistakes.”

“Molly will meet you there, Rainey,” Katie shouted. “I love you.”

Rainey managed a smile. “I love you, too. Go home. Stay with the kids. I’ll call you.”

She lowered her head and sat down in the back of a police car in cuffs, for the first time since playing the part of a prisoner during academy training. This was real and quite a different experience, she noted.

Rex stuck his head in the open door. “You think that pretty little thing will wait for you while you rot in prison?”

Rainey didn’t take the bait. She smiled. “Don’t scratch the car, Rex. It’s worth more than your pension.”

“Your father was an arrogant ass, too,” he snarled.

“Did my dad kick your ass or something? I’d be shocked if he did. He rarely lost his temper, and you would’ve needed a much larger set of balls to challenge him.” Rainey made no effort to conceal her contempt. She knew she should stop, but the opportunity was too great. She took one more manhood-questioning jab at Rex. “Oh wait, did he fuck your wife? Now, that sounds like him. He was a real ladies man.”

The fact that he flushed scarlet and slammed the car door told Rainey all she needed to know. Old Billy had a fling with someone Rex cared about. She was mulling that over when the female officer climbed into the front seat, chuckling.

She made eye contact with Rainey in the mirror and smiled. “You told that man he had tiny nads and called his wife a ‘ho’ with a smile on your face. Girl, I don’t care if you did kill somebody. That was some funny shit.”

“I don’t know,” Rainey said. “I’m having a hard time imagining my dad with someone who would sleep with Rex King. That’s a bit—disconcerting.”

She smiled through the window at Katie, who blowing kisses as the cruiser pulled away. She looked up to see the officer watching her in the mirror.

“That’s my wife,” Rainey said with pride. Ignoring her circumstances, or maybe because of them, she began to tell the officer about her family. “We have triplets, a girl and two boys, Weather, Timothy, and Mack. They just turned a year old. You should see –”

#

“We can’t put a former FBI agent in the general population,” the guard on Rainey’s right said, as she was being led to a holding cell in the Durham County Detention Center.

“King said put her in with last night’s trash,” the guard on her left said.

Rainey remained quiet. She stopped talking when they reached the jail, where she was humiliated with a strip search and given an orange jumpsuit and slippers to wear. This was all special treatment, arranged just for her by Rex King, whose demise she was plotting with each step toward the jail cell. She should have been downstairs, in her own clothes, awaiting her lawyer. This was a little treat Rex designed to frighten Rainey. She was not afraid. She was livid.

 The guards stopped in front of a large cell with seven women already inside.

“Open twenty-six,” the guard on the left said into her radio.

The guard on her right opened the cell door when the dead bolts clunked open. “Don’t tell them who you are,” she whispered to Rainey.

Rainey did not acknowledge the advice. She was afraid if she opened her mouth, she would not be able to stop the flow of obscene suggestions of what Rex King could do with his arrest warrant. The warning was pointless anyway.

One of the prisoners stood and pointed at Rainey. “Look here, y’all. We got us a good girl gone bad, a real live FBI agent coming to join us.”

The friendly guard held fast to Rainey’s arm. “We can’t put her in there. If something happens, we’ll be in big ass trouble,” she told the other guard.

Rainey pulled loose and walked into the cell. She backed up to the bars for removal of the handcuffs, her jaw set in defiance.

 “All right then, girl,” the kinder guard said, releasing the cuffs. “Go on in there, but don’t turn your back on them and watch that one in the cell to the left. Don’t get close to those bars. That one’s real mean.”

Rainey rubbed her wrist and moved away from the door, as the dead bolts clanged back into place. She headed toward the back left corner of the cell. All the other prisoners were on the right side bunks, apparently staying clear of whoever was in the adjacent cell. Rainey figured she would have a better chance of defending herself against an assailant separated from her by iron bars, than mingling in the other women’s lair. She did not search the cell for the occupant, keeping her eyes averted to the floor. No eye contact and do not lose focus, she reminded herself. She found a good defensive position and waited for the jackals to circle the new prey, prey with a badge. It would make no difference to these women that Rainey no longer carried the credentials. Once a cop, always a cop. 

A large woman, with the glassy, red-rimmed eyes of an addict coming down, stood and started toward Rainey. “You an FBI agent? I hate cops,” she growled.

“Hold on now, Big Momma,” one of the smaller women said. “You kill that girl and you ain’t never gonna see the light of day again.”

Another woman approached—not as big as the first—eyeing Rainey with murderous intent. “Go on, Big Momma, fuck her up,” she said. “You’ll get props for that over at the women’s prison. They’ll make you a hero.”

Rainey prepared to make her stand, as the women began to form a semi-circle in front of her. She was trained in self-defense, but the chances of her surviving a beat down by six motivated women were slim. Rainey was tough, in good shape, and could hold her own in a fair fight, but she was also a realist. This was going to be painful. She tried to remember some of the new defensive moves Gunny taught her since they started sparring together. As the women inched closer, Rainey was wishing Gunny were there to help her when her would-be attackers suddenly froze, their eyes widening.

Rainey heard movement in the adjacent cell. She had forgotten about the woman behind her, and moved too close to the bars. She jumped, but did not move fast enough. A large arm snaked through the bars and wrapped around Rainey’s chest, pulling her back against the bars. She thought this was it, the day she would meet her maker, and was about to say her goodbyes to Katie and the kids, when the woman in the cell behind her spoke.

“Y’all go on, now. This is my friend.”

Rainey glanced over her shoulder and broke out in a big grin. “Maybelline, I am so glad to see you,” she said to the giant woman, whose meaty arm held her pressed to the bars.

“You stay right here. They won’t mess with you.” She glared at Rainey’s cellmates. “Ain’t that right?”

The mob moved back, returning to the right side of the cell. A few mumbled under their breath, but none wanted to take on Maybelline or the network the smalltime criminal mob boss controlled. Those women hoped to be back out on the street one day. That can be a lonely place when the word is out someone is looking for you. Maybelline released her grip on Rainey, allowing her to turn and face her.

“Maybelline,” Rainey said, knowing the news she bore was not going to be pleasant. “I know what happened to Jacquie.”

Rainey explained her daughter’s fate to Maybelline as the other inmates listened. They seemed to understand that the time for aggression had passed. A woman was grieving her daughter and they respected that, remaining quiet. Rainey sat down in the corner next to the bars, where Maybelline sobbed in pain. She stuck her arm through the bars and around the shoulder of the weeping mother, whispering how sorry she was. They stayed quiet like that for almost an hour, when the guards returned.

“Come on, FBI. Your lawyer is here,” the not so nice one said.

The other guard smiled at Rainey, while she handcuffed her again. “Yeah, and that lawyer is pissed. Said we better have you back in your street clothes and downstairs, before she has a chance to rain federal agents down on this jail. Scared the pants off the guys downstairs when she whipped out that phone and got some guy from Quantico to start yelling at people.”

The other guard was playing nice, too, now that the tide appeared to be turning. “At first they all thought Jodie Foster had walked in, until they realized it was Molly Kincaid, which seemed to excite them even more. They said her name like she was the righteous hand of God himself. Never seen people moving so fast to get a prisoner released.”

Rainey laughed. “Yep, that’s my lawyer.”

#

“You better bring somebody else in here to question me. I’m not talking to that dickhead, King,” Rainey said, glaring at the mirrored glass in the interrogation room. “And turn off the damn speaker. I’m talking to my attorney.”

Molly sat perfectly still, elbows on the table, chin resting in her hands while Rainey ranted. When Rainey took a breath, she sat back. “Are you done?”

Rainey stopped pacing and sat down at the table next to the impeccably dressed Molly. The navy blue suit she wore set off her big blue eyes. Attorney Kincaid cut an impressive swath through the courtrooms of the south, much like Sherman brought the realities of the Civil War to the plantation doors of the wealthy men who began it. She was extraordinary, but to Rainey she was just Molly, a colleague, who over the past two years had become a dear friend.

“Thank you for allowing me that little tantrum. I had remained calm for about as long as I was able.”

“I could see that,” Molly said, grinning. “The vein in your neck was vibrating. That jaw clinch is a tell, as well. I’ll have to remember that the next time we play poker. I’m in the hole deep.”