Jaded (37 page)

Corrigan sighed, “You can’t be her best friend and her lover. You can’t be both.”

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“Are you kidding? Of course I can.” Bryce stood up and added, “I love her and you’re not taking her.”

“Oh my god!” I burst out. “The crazy people are outside, not in here!”

They both ignored me and Corrigan retorted with, “Sheldon is going to get the best reaction out of this guy. He’ll look at her and something will happen. A twitch, a whisker, I don’t know. Something. I have to take Sheldon with me.”

“No, you don’t,” Bryce got in his face. “Look, all you need to do is tell him that we’ve got a trail on this guy’s feed. Tell him that we’re going to have the address in the next thirty seconds or something. Then you’ll see a reaction or you won’t.”

“Stop it,” I said forcefully. “Stop it right now!”

Corrigan shifted back and Bryce faced me. He said calmly, “There is someone out there who’s obsessed—”

“And he’s likely to kill you just as much as me,” I pointed out.

Bryce

quieted.

“I did not…I didn’t bitch slap Lew to end up hiding in my own house. That’s not me and you both know it! I am done hiding, that’s the entire reason for this party.”

At Corrigan’s brief flash of triumph, I squashed it immediately and said, “But I’m not going to go accuse some cop of being dirty or setting this up or even…I don’t know…trying to actually find this person by letting me be the bait.”

“Sheldon…,” Corrigan sighed.

“I am embarrassed that I’m here,” I cried out. “I’m embarrassed that…we’re

insane. I got fed up and instead of thinking rationally and going to the police, I threw a party. And you let me!”

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Bryce and Corrigan almost jumped from the accusation, but both merely looked scared—in their tough and manly way.

I cried out, hoarse, “We’re a bunch of high school kids! I’m not some ‘Ruling Queen.’ I’m just…I’m just a girl that goes to school, that wants to keep her two best friends close, and…God forbid!—I even want to,
maybe
, hold hands in a slightly couply boy/girlfri—I still can’t say that word.”

“So what are you saying?” Corrigan asked, cautious.

“I’m saying that we’re insane!” And then I crumbled and fell back on the couch, stricken.

I knew that there was a brief exchange of looks between Corrigan and Bryce.

Bryce won out. He shooed the best friend and computer tech from the room as the boyfriend—still a knee jerk reaction—sat beside me.

“Hey…,” Bryce murmured, huskily.

“Don’t!” I said sharply.

Bryce grew silent. His hand fell away from my knee. “Sheldon,” he sighed.

And that one word, from that one voice that belonged to that one person—this is where my walls crumbled and I curled over my knees with a hoarse cry.

I didn’t want to die.

“I’m so stupid. We’re stupid.” I cursed. “This isn’t some high school prank.

We’re not—we have no idea what we’re doing. We’re talking about dirty cops. Are you serious?! When did we lose our minds?”

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“Probably about the time when you said, ‘let’s have a party,’” Bryce remarked, ruefully. His hand slid down my back. “I don’t think Corrigan ever had his mind, if that’s worth anything.”

“It’s not and you’re not helping,” I pointed out.

He was joking. I was crumbling and he was joking.

“Stop the show,” I murmured, hoarse. “I’m scared, Bryce. This is real…”

“I know!” Bryce snapped. “What do you want me to do? We’re already…the

party’s here, Sheldon! The people are here. They’re out there. We can’t send them home.

We can’t…the trap’s already been laid.”

It hadn’t been baited.

“I have to go out there.”

“What? No!” Bryce denied.

“Yes.”

The trap needed to be baited. We’d brought it this far…

“No,” Bryce said again. “This guy, he’s strong, Sheldon. He’s sick and twisted and you can’t go out there. I mean, my god, he killed Leisha and Bailey. He killed them both and then moved their bodies. What kind of sick person does that?” Bryce shook his head again, but stopped when the door was abruptly kicked open. Chet stumbled inside, along with Mandy. They fell to the floor, rolled over, and stared at us, dumbfounded.

“Oh, hey.” Chet grinned stupidly and then pushed himself upright. He soothed a hand down his wrinkled shirt and announced, “Corrigan’s been arrested. The cops want you to go down and post bail. Some Officer Sherry told me to tell Sheldon that.”

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Bryce and I didn’t even blink. We should’ve, but I almost expected something like that to happen. So we just stood and traipsed out the door. As we headed downstairs, I was grateful to see that a lot of people had cleared out, but was even more grateful when Mandy said she’d make sure everyone was gone by the time we got back.

Chet stayed behind, but Harris rode in the back. Bryce drove and I rode shotgun with a thick air of tension among us.

As we drew near the station, Harris asked, “Man, which door do we use?”

Bryce parked in the visitor parking lot and both of us got out without a word shared between us. We both fell in line beside each other as Harris trotted behind.

“Guess you guys have been here a few times, huh,” Harris said dryly.

“Corrigan getting arrested. Not new.”

“Hey,” I glanced over my shoulder. “Thanks for doing the bail.”

Harris shrugged, “No problem. Now I have a story to tell, you know. I bailed a buddy out of prison.”

“Technically,” Bryce murmured as he held open the door for us, “This is jail, not prison.”

“We can have Corrigan call you from now on. Think of all the stories you can tell then,” I suggested.

It bounced off of Harris’ shoulders as he remarked, “Screw that party. We should head to a strip joint after this. Drinks on me.”

I frowned and seriously wondered about his sanity.

As we swept into the main waiting area, we moved to the front desk where I

asked for Officer Sheila Patterson. The officer on desk duty skimmed a cold, unfeeling, Tijan

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gaze over us both before he turned and disappeared down a side hallway. A moment later, Sheila followed behind and nodded in our direction. She gestured for us to proceed behind and we did while Harris stayed in the waiting room. More than a few police officers glanced up, watched, and bent their overworked shoulders over an endless pile of paperwork. The rustling of paper never paused, stopped, or slowed.

Sheila waited with her arms crossed at the end of the hallway. Her buttoned shirt had been pulled haphazardly from her jeans. Her gun and walkie were covered by the tails of her shirt with only a corner of her radio peaking out. Her hair was pulled back in a braid that looked like it had just seen a thirty four hour shift and knew it’d see another thirty four hours before it received any tender loving care.

Her eyes were tired. And flat. Sheila hadn’t ever stopped being a cop, but I saw that the deadness stood prominent. It had me wondering what she’d unearthed in the last eighteen hours since I saw her.

“You look like you could use a bed,” Bryce murmured in greeting.

Sheila smiled tightly and replied, “Morning.”

I nodded, now tense.

Sheila raked another raking perusal over me before she nodded towards a closed door. “You know what’s going on in there?”

Bryce didn’t answer so I did. “You’re interrogating Corrigan.”

“You’re right.” She nodded briskly and moved into a back room. A one-way

mirror separated us from Corrigan’s room. He sat, bent over a table, his arms crossed underneath him and he looked like he was asleep.

“Care to venture why we’re interrogating your friend?”

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“Because he’s a cocky teenager with authority issues,” I said lightly.

Corrigan was unfazed as an officer slammed a file on the table. The table jumped, Corrigan did not. And the cop flipped open the file.

“You know what he’s showing him in there?”

I knew. I didn’t need to say it.

Sheila answered anyway, “Those are the pictures of Leisha Summers and Bailey Umbridge. Two girls that were raped, strangled, and cut to death. And your buddy in there thinks this is a joke. This isn’t a joke.”

Corrigan didn’t even look. I watched, transfixed, as my best friend didn’t even look at the pictures.

“He’s not looking,” I said faintly.

“He doesn’t have to. He’s already seen them,” Sheila rasped out. “He saw them in person and we can place him at the scenes of the crimes.”

“What?!” Bryce spoke now.

“Corrigan wasn’t anywhere near—”

“Leisha Summers did not die in the park. She died a block away from your party that night. And Bailey Umbridge, she died in the same block. She wasn’t killed in the school. She was found in the school, just like Leisha was found at the park. They were both moved.”

“Corrigan was with me the whole night—” Bryce started to say.

Sheila cut him off, “You told me that he was with you ‘most’ of the night. He disappeared, didn’t he? For a little while, didn’t he? You told me that this afternoon. You can’t take that back now.”

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I froze and whirled around.

Bryce stood, pale, and stiff. His eyes watched me in horror and he whispered, a choking sound, “I…”

His hand had held my elbow, but I moved forward, a slight shuffling step. His hand fell away and I was now cold.

“It didn’t take long for him to slip away and murder Leisha. She was only a block away. He drove her over later, after you guys finished with your ‘buddy.’ Didn’t he? He left again—”

“He went to the bathroom!” Bryce cried out, “I told you this.”

“Yeah. You gave your ‘friend’ some holes in his alibi. That’s what you did.”

I glanced between the two and pressed, “He was with Logan the night that Bailey was murdered.”

Everything

was

unraveling.

Hideously.

Sheila turned almost sympathetic eyes towards me and said softly, “She went

home. He wasn’t with her the whole night.”

“I can’t…this is preposterous!”

I felt the string quickly racing from my hands. The end was nearing and I

watched, horrified and in slow motion, as it came and passed through. My hands were too slow, too clumsy, and I stood without an anchor.

“You need to wake up about your friend, Jaded. I understand the blinders

considering all the things that have happened to you. I understand why you’re denying what’s in front of your eyes, but open your eyes. His prints were on the fourth letter. He’s virtually got no alibi for either of the murders and he’s got the criminal history to back up Tijan Jaded

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our claims. He’s got a one way ticket to being a career criminal with anti-social qualities.

And I’m not talking someone who’s just unfriendly. I’m talking anti-social personality disorder. Go to any prison and you’ll find more than you can count. That’s where they go, to prison.”

“I…”

Everything

was

collapsing.

“We’ve got a psychologist coming in for an assessment. He’s going to tell us that Corrigan is capable of murdering two teenage girls. Judges listen to those guys.”

“Corrigan didn’t murder anyone. My god—he was arrested because he thinks one of you guys know who did and they’re not doing anything about it,” Bryce said harshly.

Sheila quieted and seemed to withdraw, though her feet didn’t move.

Bryce saw it too and he murmured, not missing a beat, “Is that what this is about?

He fingered one of you guys so you’re taking him down? Does it work that way?”

“You better watch what you’re claiming…,” Sheila said faintly, but she backed off.

“Can we talk to him?” I asked, a sudden white flag rose in the air.

Sheila glanced over my shoulders, sighed, and said faintly, “No.”

“Fine.” I nodded tightly and Bryce moved ahead of me for the door. He saw the disengaged expression on my face and abruptly bundled me outside, away from prying eyes and ears. The cold air was cool and crisp. It was exactly what I needed.

Bryce waited behind me…

And then I turned swiftly and punched him.

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Bryce didn’t move. He didn’t react. He didn’t even flinch. He knew it was

coming.

“You came here and talked to her?!” I exclaimed, harshly.

Bryce knew it was coming. He murmured, “I wanted to help. I want them to know as much as possible to find this psycho.”

“And instead, they twisted your words and they’re
still
after Corrigan!”

Bryce didn’t say anything, not for awhile. And I held my breath, knowing that was the worst reaction I could’ve hoped for…and then I heard, faintly, …

“Maybe they’re after the right guy.”

I sucked in my breath and lashed out blindly, “You did not just say that!”

Bryce backed up. “I’m just saying—”

I turned my back, but my words were lethal, “You did
not
just say that!”

“I did, Sheldon.” He sighed heavily behind me.

“Go away,” I said tightly.

“No,” he said just as tightly.

“You cannot…it’s not Corrigan…”

Bryce sighed, ragged, and said softly, faintly, “I think we both need to face the facts that we don’t know who it is…”

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They wouldn’t let Corrigan out on bail. He was too important and sacred. I

agreed, but for different reasons. As we left, we bypassed his parents. They’d been called by another student, a Good Samaritan that would be rewarded when Corrigan hunted him down in thanks.

Harris dropped us off at home and we found Mandy to be true to her word.

Everyone was gone except Chet and Tatum. The house was nearly spotless and all three were lounging on the couches, watching television.

Bryce took a beer for me and one for him before he dropped down on the closest empty seat next to Mandy.