Dead Center (The Rookie Club Book 1) (11 page)

He dropped to the ground. Heart pounding. Squinting in the dark, he saw a man circle 'round the back of the house. Z held his breath, pressed his body flat. The man was maybe his dad's height. Shorter than Mr. Washington but bigger—much bigger—than old Mr. Parker.

When he got to the back of the house, he took a few steps up the hill. Z held his breath. Z had never seen anyone in the yard before. He watched as the man stared up into the windows. Z didn't see the lady now. In the dark, Z couldn't see the man's face. He was just a shadow as he climbed up the hill toward Z's house.

Z let the breath hiss out of his lips. Took another breath and held himself perfectly still. He had to pee bad now. The man stopped at Z's shed. He slapped the side of it as though to see if it might fall over, peered inside.

Light from the house next door cut across a sliver of the yard as the man passed. He didn't look like one of those people who had made him go to school and taken him to a foster home. They always wore fancy clothes—ties and skirts and stuff. Didn't they know that dressing like that only made kids feel worse? This guy wasn't like that. He dressed like a regular guy—jeans and a brown jacket.

The man squinted into the dark. He seemed to aim his gaze right at Zephenaya.

Z blinked fast. His nose tickled. He ignored it, breathed slowly. The ground was wet on his legs. He longed to shift but didn't dare. The man turned back toward the house, started down the hill.

Zephenaya itched his nose quickly.

The lady crossed in front of the window upstairs.

The man halted, watching. He watched like he was studying her. It gave Z the willies.

The bedroom light shut off and the yard went dark. Z blinked hard, couldn't see. He reached down and squeezed his penis to hold it. He didn't want to wet his pants. They were the only ones he had.

The man stood there in the dark for what felt like ten minutes; then he backed away from the house, crept quietly around the side yard, and disappeared. Zephenaya didn't move for another ten minutes, until he was sure he was going to pee his pants. Then he got on his knees, peed into the tree as fast as he could, staring at the side of the house the whole time.

Back in his shed, Z found his blanket on the ground. Everything else looked the same. Shawna's letter was still inside the bag under a pot. His food and stuff was hidden because he'd worried about animals, so maybe it was okay.

To be extra safe, he opened up the narrow side cupboard where he'd removed the shelves and crawled inside to sleep. They used to call him a runt at school on account of his being so small, but sometimes being small was a good thing.

Tucking his blanket around him, Zephenaya slid the cupboard door closed. Eyes shut, he tried to block out the creepy man as he fell asleep. His last prayer was the same as every night—that tomorrow he'd find Shawna.

Chapter 11

Jamie dreamed about a ringing phone, saw it sink into a tub of water. She reached in, splashing water over the edge of a white porcelain tub and onto a floor decorated with one inch octagonal tiles. White. Like the ones her father had laid in their bathroom. The tub was deep, growing deeper as she reached down for the phone. Reached and reached. Just as her fingers grazed the phone, her mother's face appeared. Her expression matched an old snapshot. Though she was underwater, she didn't look like she was having trouble breathing. She was smiling, waving. Sinking deeper. Jamie stretched, pushed her own face into the water, reaching but she was too far. Her mother sank farther, still smiling. Waved again. Marchek appeared from behind her mother. His eyes were black in the water. He waved to her, wiggling his fingers. Menacing, cruel beside her mother's kind, loving wave. Jamie pressed deeper, diving for her mother as Marchek pressed his face to her mother's. Too close. Jamie made a last effort to grab at her mother. Out of breath, she inhaled, filling her lungs with water.

Jamie jolted upright. Heart pounding, hands at her neck. Choking. But she wasn't choking. She was breathing. There was no water. She was awake now. Her thoughts returned to the dream. The phone was ringing in her room. She blinked and looked at the clock: 8:15. It was morning again. Her notebook was open beneath Barney. She exhaled and closed her eyes again.

The phone rang again.

Barney whined and stood up on the bed.

She rubbed her face, cleared her throat as she reached for the phone. "Vail."

"Jamie."

She blew out her breath. "Tim, I'm hanging up."

"No. Wait!" he pleaded. "You're my one call."

One call? "What?"

"I'm in jail." His voice was breathless. Terrified.

She closed her eyes. "Jesus Christ."

"I didn't know who else to call."

She scanned the room for cigarettes.

"Natasha." His voice cracked. "I'm being charged with her murder."

"Where are you?" she asked.

"At the Hall. In a holding cell."

"You called an attorney?"

"Not yet."

"Don't talk to anyone. I'm on my way." She dropped the handset on the bed, stood and stepped out of her sweatpants. She considered not showering, but she had to. The reek of cigarette smokes was worse if she didn't shower and soap every day. She soaped quickly, shampooed, brushed her teeth twice, rinsed, and emerged all in less than the time it took her to process what had happened. Tim was in jail. He'd come forward. She'd never expected them to book him straightaway, but she should have considered it. There would be a bail hearing. He wasn't a flight risk, but they might put a high price on bail. The murder of a police investigator was not going to be taken lightly.

Plus, there was evidence—Devlin's blood all over his clothes, their very public argument at the banquet. He could say he showed up and found her dead, but it was a hard story to swallow. Why had he gone to find her? It was obvious to everyone who heard their argument that she didn't want anything to do with him. The pressure to solve the case quickly would be overwhelming. But someone had to have seen Devlin with her real killer. Where had she gone after the banquet? And with whom?

Or was Jamie the one being naive and stupid? Tim was covered in Devlin's blood. He had been angry with her. Everyone at the banquet had seen that. Why did she so quickly dismiss the idea that Tim could be Devlin's killer? Her tendency was always to make a decision about a case quickly. The thing that saved her was that she didn't make a move on her theories until the evidence backed her up, but maybe in this case, her initial decision was dead wrong. After all, didn't they say that if looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... Maybe Tim was a duck. A duck up shit creek, in this case.

Rubbing her face, Jamie asked herself why the hell she was involved in this. Murder was not in her job description. She had no duty to Tim. But instead of crawling back into bed and saying to hell with him, she scrambled to find a shirt that looked relatively clean. Pulled it over her head. She fumbled with her pants, dragged a comb through her hair. She tried to tame the wildest strands. She brushed powder on her cheeks to even out the bags, pinched the skin to try to put some color in her cheeks. Then she gave up.

Questions tracked mud around her brain. Why had Tim come to her the other night? To tell her he hadn't killed Devlin? Did he know he'd be charged? Could he be guilty?

Impossible. Not Tim. Maybe that was naive and stupid, but she still couldn't imagine it. He got angry in a blowhard kind of way. She'd never seen him actually do anything about it. In fact, usually he was the one to back down and apologize. Carrying a grudge was out of character and violence was not in his capacity. She'd known him long enough to make that judgment. At least she thought she had. She ran down the stairs, let Barney out. Rushing, she filled his bowl with food, checked his water. She slipped her holster over her shoulders, lit a cigarette. Barney came back in, sniffed his food, looked up.

"No walk this morning, buddy."

He shrugged, dug into breakfast.

As she drove to the city, she left the driver's window down. She smoked one cigarette after another. The nicotine buzzed in her head as the same question swarmed like a pack of bees: Was Tim a killer? She'd once thought he'd never cheat. Told herself it wasn't the same. Was it?

She should have sent someone else. He needed an attorney, not her. She stabbed the cigarette out. Masochist. She wished she didn't care. It had been too long to care.

She dialed Ed Goldman, a defense attorney, and told his secretary who she was and what she needed.

"Goldman," he said, coming on the line quickly. She pictured him sitting back in a fancy chair at a window overlooking some stunning view—Coit Tower or one of the bridges. She had no idea where his office was, but she was certain it would be in the high-rent district, flamboyantly decorated in a style akin to his exorbitant rates, which meant it would also be high off the ground.

"It's Jamie Vail."

The slope-shouldered, full-bellied man clicked his tongue. She imagined him picking invisible lint off an expensive suit, the way he did when he was pretending not to be bothered by whatever charges the prosecutor was launching at his client. The hawk-like nose and the full head of blond hair that always seemed at odds with the rest of his appearance. "Inspector Vail," Goldman said, drawing out the name. "What an honor. I must admit, I was surprised when Barbara said it was you."

"I need an attorney at the jail," she said in an attempt to cut off any additional chitchat.

He laughed. "You commit a murder, Inspector?"

She swallowed the knot. "A friend is being charged."

The rustle of paper, a pen click as Goldman got to work. His tone changed. "What are the charges?"

She drove, pressed the accelerator to the floor as she talked.

"I'll be there in an hour."

She hung up, considered going home. Instead, she kept driving.

By the time she pulled into the parking lot behind the jail at the Hall of Justice, her hair had blown into divided strands with the same texture as straw. Running her fingers through the mess in an attempt to comb out the clumps was futile. Instead, she patted it down, tucked what she could behind her ears, and headed inside.

The jail was in the new section of the building, modern and sleek. The novelty of the buildings architecture had lasted only a week or two. It was still a jail. Five years later, the yellow linoleum floors were scuffed and cracked. The smell of new metal and fresh paint replaced by a smell that brought to mind cooked peas and the acrid stench of men's sweat. She hated the place, avoided it whenever she could.

She hated it now. She wanted to hate Tim, longed to hate him. Couldn't. With no good reason, either. Damn him.

At the front desk, a wiry woman sat on a stool, a foot dangling off each side. Jamie wondered how she could work with the smell. Probably she didn't notice it anymore, like the people who inhabited towns near slaughterhouses. Jamie handed the woman her badge.

The woman wrote left-handed and at such a backwards slant, it looked like she was writing upside down as she recorded Jamie's badge number in the log. Finished, she checked her entry and returned the badge, nodding Jamie through. As Jamie headed into the hall, the woman picked a romance novel up off the desk. Not for the first time, Jamie wished she had some fantasy in her life.

Unfortunately, nothing short of the dismal reality captured her attention. For enjoyment, she read the crime sections of other major newspapers, mostly online, and she participated in a couple of cop chat groups. Solving crimes, especially when they weren't hers, was enjoyable. And it passed time when she couldn't sleep, which was often.

Inside the jail, Jamie passed through the metal detector, leaving her gun, her purse, and the lighter from her pocket.

"You want a room?" the officer asked her.

She shook her head. She didn't want Tim to be able to touch her. That was what she thought about—that and the fact that she probably had bad breath. "Phone's fine."

The officer shrugged and buzzed the door open. "Three," he said.

The heavy metal door closed behind her with a deafening clank. She sat in the third cubicle, waited. She gripped her hands. The inner door banged shut and Tim shuffled in.