Under Attack (19 page)

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Authors: Hannah Jayne

BOOK: Under Attack
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I scooched forward on the car seat, leaned as close as I dared to the plastic-holed divider. “Do you know Alex Grace?” I asked Officer Houston as he drove, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the butt of his shotgun. He didn't answer me, just smoothly pulled around a slow-moving minivan and hit the gas.
“Sir? Excuse me?”
I saw Officer Houston's chest go as he blew out a long sigh. “Yeah, I know Detective Grace. Why?”
An immense feeling of relief washed over me. “He's my friend. He'll tell you that I didn't do this. There is someone after me. Her name is Ophelia. Ophelia—well, she doesn't have a last name, at least I don't think she does. Anyway, she did it; Alex—Detective Grace—he'll corroborate my story. Can you just call him, please? Or, don't I get a phone call?”
Officer Houston turned the wheel and maneuvered the squad car into an open space in the police department lot. He opened the back door and clamped his hand on my shoulder, sliding me out.
“You're going to call him, right? Or we could just go see him. He's probably in his office.”
Officer Houston pulled me close to him. We were nearly nose to nose and I could see the grit of his yellowed teeth, smell the faint odor of nicotine and sweat on his collar. “Look, girlie. The only thing I hate more than someone who would take advantage of an elderly individual is someone who thinks they have some sort of special privilege because they know someone on the force. I don't care if your best friend is the Queen of fucking Sheba; this isn't a parking ticket. You're not getting out of this one.”
“I'm not trying to get out of this,” I wailed as Officer Houston shuffled me toward the door. “I want this person caught as much as you do. She's evil. You don't understand what's at stake!”
Officer Houston rolled his eyes and kept walking, shoving me lightly in front of him. “Let me guess: I should set you free, and you'll bring the
real
killer to justice.”
“Um, yes, actually.”
“You and OJ, sweetie pie.”
Officer Houston guided me into the police station vestibule and I looked longingly at the elevators that had so often shuttled me down to the safety and comfort of the Underworld. I clamped my eyes shut, imploring the elevator doors to open, to spit out Nina or Vlad or even Pierre—anyone who could help me.
“Can I call someone?” I asked, my voice sounding small.
Officer Houston just stared at me as he picked up the phone at the registry desk and punched a few numbers. He held the phone to my ear and I felt my lower lip quiver when I heard the recorded voice on the line.
“The customer you have tried to call”—a break, and then a gruff-sounding Alex inserting his name—“has left the calling area. Please try again later.” There was a click, then the drone of the dial tone as it wailed mournfully on the line.
“Looks like your detective buddy took the day off.”
“She planned that.”
Officer Houston's smile was patronizing. “I'm sure she did.”
I considered calling Nina and then reminded myself that even if I weren't mad at her, asking a vampire to bail me out of jail for murder was a flawed plan. Bringing Nina to the police station would draw unnecessary attention to the Underworld and plus, she was a vampire—which would also bring unnecessary attention.
But I was desperate.
“Can I call someone else?”
Officer Houston just shook his head, threaded his hand underneath my arm, and led me to booking.
My eyes were wide and moist and my throat was dry as I was strip-searched, fingerprinted, and subjected to three rather unflattering mug shots.
Officer Elia Gonzalez was escorting me around the premises now—she was a pinched woman with slicked-back hair, a deep frown, and a Napoleon complex.
I looked at her and tried my best sisterly grin. “Look, Officer Gonzalez, this is all a big misunderstanding.”
“Are you saying Officer Houston isn't doing his job correctly?”
“No, no, I would never say that. He's been more than”—I frowned down at my cuffed wrists—“adequate. And I know how it must have looked, me there in Mr. Matsura's apartment. It's an honest mistake.”
Officer Gonzalez studied me, arms crossed in front of her chest, one hip jutted out. “Uh-huh.”
She put one hand on the small of my back and used the other to lead me down a long, sterile hallway to an electronically monitored door that said
HOLDING CELLS
. She dialed in her code and a loud buzz signaled the open door.
“But I'm innocent!” I exclaimed.
Officer Gonzalez's expression didn't change as she led me through the door. “Everyone is.”
I tried to struggle away. “No, no—I'm serious. You've got to believe me. This is a setup. I don't even know if this really happened. Has anyone gone back and checked on Mr. Matsura? He's probably alive. She can make you see things!”
“Well, whoever she is, she's making Mr. Matsura see the inside of the morgue.”
I blinked back tears. “I'm being framed!”
Officer Gonzalez stopped, her thick-soled black shoes squeaking on the tiled floor. “Really?” Her eyebrows went up.
I took in a relieved breath. “Yes, that's what I've been trying to tell you. I tried to tell Officer Houston, but he wouldn't believe me. I am being framed.”
Officer Gonzalez dipped into her pocket and used the key to click off my handcuffs. I rubbed the red rings left on my wrists.
“Thank you. I know who's framing me, too. I don't know where to find her or really, how to contact her, but her name is Ophelia and—”
I stopped in midsentence as Officer Gonzalez put one hand on my shoulder, pushing me gently backward. I took a few steps and she slammed the barred door in my face, clicking the lock.
“Everyone is innocent,” she said.
Chapter Fourteen
I shuffled my feet and felt the prick of heat as the terror slipped down my spine. I was
in jail
. A holding cell, yes, but still—jail. I knew what went on in prison. I had seen
Oz
, the final episodes of
Prison Break
. I opened my mouth; felt the lightness in my head as I started to hyperventilate.
“Put your head between your knees.”
I whirled around.
“Sit down. Come on, sit down and put your head between your knees.”
I gaped at the woman relaxing on the hard metal bench behind me. She was older, probably in her late forties, with a bubbly head of slick black curls and a kindly face. Sitting primly in her housecoat and slippers, she gave off a comforting cookies-and-milk vibe. The woman slid aside, patted an open spot on the bench. I sat next to her and crumbled over, my hair swinging against the concrete as I shoved my head between my knees and tried to take deep, calming breaths while also trying not to suck in the stale air of the holding cell.
“I'm not supposed to be here,” I mumbled, feeling the tears slip over my nose and plop onto the ground.
The woman patted the back of my head calmly. “None of us are,” she said.
I sat up and looked around, for the first time noticing the other women in the cell. Two girls were chatting in the back corner, dressed in thigh-highs and barely there dresses, giggling as though they were at a frat party instead of in a jail cell.
“They're regulars,” the woman on the bench said, following my gaze. “That's Ella and Asia,” she said.
The two girls looked at me and gave brief smiles; both were heavily made up with cheery bright red lips and streaky eye makeup in colors not found in nature.
I offered a tight smile. “They look ... nice.” My gaze trailed from Ella and Asia to the cinder-block walls of the cell, messages from past guests—
EASTSIDE BITCHES
! and
DEATH TO PIGS
!—scrawled into a semi-fresh coat of steel-grey paint. I felt the color drain from my face and my head went light again.
“Between your knees,” the woman next to me commanded. I folded forward and willed myself not to cry, but a fresh round of tears started anyway. I sniffed.
The woman next to me bent over as well, her curly black hair in an unmoving bouffant. “I'm Arletta.”
I shook the hand the woman offered and we both straightened up. “Sophie,” I said, working hard to smile.
Arletta's dark eyes trailed over me. “Rough night, huh?”
I sniffled again and swallowed wildly, trying to squash down the lump in my throat.
Arletta scooched closer to me on the cold metal bench and patted me gently on the shoulder. “We know you didn't mean to do it, sugar. Sometimes the devil just gets into you.”
Arletta's words hit me like a hot stone. I stared down at my hands and gasped—they felt heavy, hot, and when I blinked, Mr. Matsura's blood was seeping through my fingers, pooling in velvet-red spots on the cement. I gasped and rubbed my palms furiously against my jeans, feeling the friction of the denim on my skin but still unable to get the heat of Mr. Matsura's blood off of them.
Sometimes the devil just gets into you... .
The devil wasn't in me—he was part of me.
Arletta took my hand and laced her fingers through mine. I expected her to recoil, to scream at the sight and feel of my bloody palms, but she didn't, and when I looked down, my hand was clean—the only color coming from leftover smears of fingerprint ink.
“You're going to be all right,” she said with a matronly pat of my hand.
I wished I could believe her.
I leaned my head against the cold cement wall and blew out a sigh. I tried to close my eyes, to imagine a better scenario, but each time I did my mind was flooded with images of Mr. Matsura, of his gaping mouth, of his ashen lips, the marble glass of his cold, dead eyes.
“I have to get out of here,” I mumbled, springing to my feet. “Is there a guard, someone?” I went to the bars at the front of the cell and gripped them, trying my best to rattle them, to make some noise.
“Hello?”
There were answering catcalls from the surrounding holding cells and then the creak of the security door. The catcalls died down, the chatter replaced by the thunk-thunk-thunk of metal against metal, by the click of high heels walking slowly, deliberately across the hard linoleum floor. I craned my neck, pressing my forehead against the bars, and gasped.
Ophelia.
She was poured into a sexy prison guard uniform that showed off her shapely hips. Her slate-grey top was unzipped to show the top of her breasts and I wondered why the other prisoners weren't reacting. The whole cellblock was deathly quiet; the only sound was the thunk-thunk-thunk of Ophelia as she slowly dragged a tin cup against the jailhouse bars.
Her deliberate walk slowed when she reached my holding cell. As she passed I saw that her icicle-blue eyes were dancing with a sick kind of delight. Her red lips were plumped into a wicked grin. She stopped and we were nose to nose.
“You did this,” I spat.
Ophelia just wagged her head and broadened her smile, touching my nose with her index finger. “You did this,” she said, unable to keep the glee from her voice. “I have to say, little sis, the orange jumper looks good on you. Really sets off your hair.”
Heat surged in my belly.
“Looks like you were made for prison.” Ophelia wagged her head sadly. “Have a felon for a child—big disappointment for a lot of parents.”
“I didn't do anything wrong.”
Ophelia's elegant fingers trailed across her neck. “Tell me, Sophie, have you had any issues with your neck lately?”
“I—” But my voice was immediately choked by the heavy band tightening around my neck. I felt my eyes start to water and I tried to cough, to scratch at the nonexistent collar.
“You look so much like your mother when you do that.”
The choking feeling intensified and I clamped my eyes shut, seeing stars—and my mother's eyes as she stepped forward and threaded a noose around her neck.
I opened my mouth, sputtering, and tried to step back, out of her reach, and when I did I stumbled, falling hard on my butt. The noose around my neck was gone and I gasped and breathed heavily, feeling tears spill over my cheeks. I blinked and looked around me; the grey blocks of the cell were gone and I was in an attic somewhere. My mother was in front of me, young and soft, just the way I remember. A tear slipped down her cheek. I tried to reach out, to say something to her, but I couldn't move, couldn't get my mouth to form the words. My mother stepped forward and threaded the noose around her neck.
I started to scream.
There were voices all around me. Some laughed, some uttered things like “newbie” and “fresh meat.” Someone else told me to can it.
Arletta was kneeling next to me, her arms around me, her dark eyes full of motherly concern. Ella and Asia looked on, Ella's purple-rimmed eyes registering boredom, Asia's a thinly veiled sadness. “Drugs,” I heard her mumble.
“Did you see her?” I gasped. “She was here.”
“Who was here, honey?”
“Ophelia.” I kicked back against the cement floor and struggled to stand up. “And my mother.” I felt the warmth from the rope around my neck. “She made me see—she made me ...”
“No one was here, Sophie. Just the four of us.”
Ella and Asia offered patronizing smiles.
“She's making me crazy,” I said, rubbing my temples. “She's not going to be happy until I'm in the nuthouse.”
“Drugs are a terrible mistress.” Arletta shook her head sadly.
“It's not drugs,” I said, sinking my hands into my back pockets. My fingers touched a piece of paper and I tugged a business card from my pocket. I gaped at it. “What the—?” I turned the card over in my hand and shook my head at the raised gold lettering:
Will Sherman, Guardian
. I had a vague recollection of seeing him in the vestibule, but I couldn't recall him ever handing me a business card.
And I would have remembered if it had said
Guardian
. I turned the little white card over and over in my hands, then bit my lip.
“I need to make a phone call,” I said slowly.
I called out for a guard, praying that Ophelia and her sex-crazed warden outfit wouldn't show up again. I guess I was in luck as Officer Houston ambled down the hall toward me, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his expression wary.
“You need something?”
“Can I make a phone call?”
“You got your one call.”
“But there was no answer. That doesn't count. Right?”
“Hey, Trevor!” Asia did a delicate finger wave in Officer Houston's direction. She batted her heavily made-up lashes, raked her talonlike fingernails through her hot-pink hair. “I didn't know you were working tonight.”
Officer Houston offered what I supposed was a grin to the ladies. “Didn't know you were working tonight either, Asia. Hey, Ella, Arletta.”
“Can I make that phone call now, Trev—er, Officer?” I offered my sweetest smile, batted my eyelashes.
“Got any gum?” Asia asked him, her breasts thrust out in front of her.
Officer Houston pulled a stick of gum from his pocket and fed it through the bars to Asia.
“Look,” I whispered, “if you're going to give them special treatment ...”
“Special treatment? It's a stick of gum. And besides—Asia didn't kill a man.”
Asia and Ella stiffened and shrank behind me.
“You killed a man?” Ella asked, her dishwater-blond hair straggly as it fell over her bony shoulder.
“No! No. The phone call, please?”
“Hands.”
“What?”
Officer Houston tapped his nightstick on a horizontal opening in the cell bars. “Hands.”
I set my hands through the slot and he clamped a set of handcuffs around my wrists, then sunk a key into the lock and escorted me out of the holding cell.
My heart beat with each ring of the phone.
Come on, come on, answer
, I silently prayed.
“'Yello?”
My heart caught in my throat. “Oh, thank God, Will.”
“Yes, this is Will. My I ask who's speaking?”
“Will, it's me, Sophie.”
“Sophie, Sophie ... doesn't ring a bell.”
“Sophie Lawson!” I shouted into the phone. I lowered my voice trying to cover the mouthpiece with my shoulder. “You know, from your apartment building?”
“Oh, right! How are you, Sophie?”
“Terrible. I'm in jail.”
I heard a snort of laughter. “What's that? I didn't hear you. It almost sounded like you said you were in jail.”
“I did—I am!”
“In jail?”
“Yes. Look, forget the pleasantries and get me out of here!”
“Calm down, love, I'm on my way.”
I listened to the drone of the dial tone for a full minute before I let Officer Houston shuffle me back to the holding cell.
I don't know if it was the damp cigarette smell of the holding cell or my sheer fear of being in the pokey, but it felt like it took hours for Will to arrive. Relief poured over me in waves when the heavy hallway door opened and an annoyed-looking Officer Houston, followed by a grinning Will, pushed through.
I rushed to the bars and gripped them. “Oh, Will, thank God you're here!”
Will looked around, whistled through his teeth. “This is all right, I kind of like it.” He grinned at me. “It's a little like picking up a puppy out at the pound, isn't it?”
I ignored his comment and looked at Officer Houston. “He's my friend. Do we get to talk face-to-face?”
“Better n'that,” Officer Houston said, sinking his key into the lock. “You're free to go.”
Ella, Asia, and Arletta flooded to the front of the cell. Officer Houston held up his hand stop-sign style and inclined his head to me. “Just her.”
I beamed, but Officer Houston didn't look happy.
“You got me out? Like, I can go out onto the street? I'm not a fugitive?”
Both men shuffled me out and I cringed in the bright light of the police vestibule, bustling with uniformed cops. “It's so bright. I think my eyes were adjusting to my life without sunlight.”
“You were in there for two hours,” Will said.

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