Fighting to be Free by Kirsty Moseley (41 page)

Since he was working all night, that meant that he’d be seriously tired tomorrow and no doubt would sleep the entire plane ride to Rome. That meant I wouldn’t be joining the mile high club.

Well, not tomorrow anyway, there would be plenty of opportunities for that; we had lots of plane rides planned.

A sloppy kiss on my cheek and a squeeze to my shoulder brought me out of my reverie. “Not fair. I hate it I tell you,” Stacey slurred, nuzzling her face against the side of mine.

I smiled, supporting most of her weight as she swayed. It was only seven thirty but she was wasted already, probably due to the fact that she’s started drinking at five. “I’ll email all the time, and post cards, lots and lots of post cards,” I assured her for the hundredth time.

She pouted. “But what am I gonna do without my bestie? For a whole year too! You’re gonna forget all about little old Stacey Gordon.” She hiccupped as she spoke, her blue watery eyes locked onto mine.

I’d been trying to leave the house forever, I was almost there too, the door was in sight now, just twenty more steps and I was home free. But Stacey was freaking out…. again. I cupped her face in my hands, looking at her sternly. “Stace, I couldn’t forget about you even if I tried,” I promised.

She seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. While she was temporarily placated I decided it was time to go. I’d already said bye to everyone, done my duty and passed the cheerleader torch to another girl.

Now I wanted egg rolls and an early night! “I’m going. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” I kissed her forehead before stepping back and nodding to Paul who was watching the scene. Stacey sniffed and turned to him, immediately crying into his chest that her ‘bestest friend in the world was abandoning her’.

I winced, wondering if I should take her home. She was an emotional drunk, she wouldn’t remember half of this in the morning when she came over to my place we said our real goodbye before I left for the airport.

Paul waved at the door, smiling as he patted Stacey’s back, soothing her like a hysterical child.

I took a deep breath, taking one last glance at the people around me. Most of them were fake friends and popularity seekers; to be honest I wasn’t going to miss this scene much at all. My high school career was over, but I was moving on to more exciting things so there was no nostalgia at all.

Making a swift exit through the front - only getting caught by a couple more huggers on the way out - I finally stepped out into the fresh air. Closing the door behind me, I leant against it and felt the smile creep onto my face. Tonight was the start of the rest of my life. I practically skipped towards my beloved beetle.

About thirty steps from freedom someone called my name behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see Mark. I suppressed a groan and waved, trying to be friendly. “Can’t stop, I was due home thirty minutes ago,” I called as I continued my escape.

“Ellie, I need to talk to you.”

I shook my head, turning to face him but walking backwards towards my car as I held my hands up innocently. I knew what this would be about and I didn’t want to hear it. I’d had plenty of lectures off of him the last two months about how much of a ‘huge mistake’ I was making by travelling instead of going to school this year. I think in his mind he saw us both going to the same school, and that he’d have more chances to win me back. Jamie had certainly thrown a spanner into the works there!

“Gotta go. Go have a drink and enjoy your night,” I suggested. I reached the car then and jammed my key into the driver’s side, opening it preparing to get it.

“Ellie, I need to talk to you, can you just stop for a minute?” Mark asked, frowning as I continued to try and escape into my car.

I sighed and turned to face him, already expecting this to be something along the lines of a last-ditch attempt to get me back with him. He knew I was going away tomorrow with Jamie, so this was probably the last big push to put a stop to that. “What is it, Mark?” I threw my purse into the car. I really needed to get home and get the last of my packing done, I hated leaving things to the last minute - plus, my parents were buying takeout tonight, our last family meal together for a while.

Mark stopped in front of me, his eyes searching mine. “I know you’re gonna think I’m making this up in an effort to get you to stay,” he started. Bull’s-eye! I put my hands on my hips, waiting. “Well I’m not, honestly, I’m just telling you this because it needs to be said. I’m actually not allowed to tell you, my dad made me promise because technically I’m breaking some sort of law right now.”

I frowned. What on earth was this about? This wasn’t how I saw this conversation going at all!

“Huh?”

He blew out a big breath and ran a hand through his hair, leaning against my car. “Your boyfriend isn’t as great as you think he is, in fact, you don’t even know him at all.”

This conversation was starting to make me feel a little nervous. I didn’t know Jamie at all? What on earth did that mean? “Mark, just spit it out, you’re making no sense!”

He nodded. “I’ve been helping my dad a lot recently at the weekends and stuff. It looks good on my college stuff so I’ve been helping him with menial cases, just doing little things like filing and stuff.

But last week one of his clerks was sick with the flu and he needed me to research some stuff for a high profile client of his,” he explained.

“Okay….” I mumbled, waiting for him to continue. I knew he helped his dad sometimes, he always had done, I was surprised that Mark didn’t want to be a lawyer the same as his dad instead of a doctor.

“At first I wondered what was so special about this case. It was just a grand theft auto, nothing major. The guy had gotten in an accident in the stolen car and so was busted for it. But my dad seems to be working so hard on it, putting much more effort in than normal.”

I gulped, slowly understanding what this was about. Terry. Mark’s dad was Terry’s hotshot lawyer?

Mark cleared his throat awkwardly and continued, “So I started looking into it, wondering why my dad was so bothered and spending so much time on it. Turns out that the guy that’s paying my dad’s fees, pays a lot, for a lot of different people too. It’s like he’s some kind of mafia or something, paying for my dad to represent everyone.”

Brett. He was talking about the guy Jamie worked for. I didn’t know what to say, what could I say? I wasn’t supposed to know anything about anything!

“So I start helping with the case, right? It turns out that the prosecution are trying to pin a load of other stuff on this guy too. They’re trying to link him to other known criminals and turn up other stuff that he’s into, arrest more people and stuff. They have to disclose everything they find to my dad; it’s one of the laws of court of something. They have to send my dad copies of witness statements and stuff so he can prepare his defence,” he said, looking at me intently as if he was checking that I was following what he was saying.

Was I
following? I still didn’t understand why he was telling me all this. What did this have to do with me not knowing my boyfriend as well as I thought I did? “Mark, this is a great story and all but….” I shrugged, looking at my watch obviously. I needed to go soon or my mom would pitch a fit.

He nodded. “I’m getting to the point,” he confirmed. “Yesterday I got a stack of files sent over from the prosecution for me to copy and put away,” he reached into his pocket, pulling out a couple of folded up sheets of paper, “the prosecution have my dad’s client meeting up with known criminals.

They have photos, times, dates, all that stuff. One of the guys in the photo, well, it was Jamie.” He held out the pieces of paper to me, keeping one back to himself.

I felt my heart stop beating. They had details of Terry and Jamie together? Was Jamie in trouble by association? I needed to call him quickly and tell him! Would this stop us from being able to go tomorrow? Or maybe we should bring the flight forward and go tonight, just in case.

I knew I needed to play dumb. I couldn’t let Mark know that I knew Jamie was stealing cars and working for this Brett guy. “
My
Jamie? Don’t be so stupid!” I retorted, willing my voice to come out strong and not show that total panic that was brewing up inside me. What if Mark told my parents that Jamie was associating with a car thief? Would they stop me from going away with him tomorrow?

Mark nodded; not having the smug expression that I thought would be there due to the fact that he was probably thinking I would break up with my boyfriend because of this revelation. Instead, he actually looked a little sad, like he was worried how I was going to take the news. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure it’s him, it says his name too, Jamie Cole. Look at the photo, it’s him, right?” he said, nodding at the papers he was still holding out to me.

I gulped and took them, opening them. Immediately I was confronted by a black and white photo of Jamie, laughing with three other guys - I knew who two of them were, I’d met them before once when we were out and they just so happened to come into the same bar as us. The two guys, Terry and Ray, were actually pretty nice.

Mark pointed to Terry. “That’s my dad’s client, the car thief. And that’s Jamie with him, right?”

I nodded, unsure what I should say that wouldn’t incriminate Jamie further.

“Ellie, he’s not who you think he is. He’s not a good guy,” Mark whispered, producing out another piece of paper from his pocket.

I opened my mouth to defend Jamie and rebut that statement, Jamie was in fact a great guy, the nicest I’d ever met, well, after my dad. But Mark cut me off before I could protest.

“He’s been inside, Ellie. I have his rap sheet here,” he said, unfolding it slowly.

Inside? Like Jail? What the hell, no way! He’d never told me that - why would he have not told me that? Had he been inside for boosting cars?

“No,” I muttered, shaking my head fiercely. Jamie would have told me if he had. Sure, he had secrets and his past was bad, but he would have told me something serious like that, definitely!

Mark nodded, frowning. “Yeah, Ellie. He…. He killed someone. He was let out of juvie a few months ago, around the time you two met actually.”

I couldn’t breathe.

Killed someone….

Jamie had killed someone? Did Mark seriously just say that?

“No,” I muttered again, trying not to let myself even entertain that thoughts. He was wrong. My Jamie couldn’t kill anyone; he was too adorable and sweet.

Mark held out the last piece of paper to me. “Yeah,” he stated. “I don’t have any details because this is all they sent over, but it says he was sentenced to four years and two months in juvie for murder. He was only fourteen.”

Murder. The word made my blood go cold.

I snatched the sheet out of his hands, not believing him but the words were clearly printed there. His name, date of birth, known affiliates - which consisted of Terry, Ray and Brett, along with a load of others that I didn’t recognise. It showed the dates of his sentence. He was released from juvie just over a week before I met him.

Suddenly it felt like a fog had been lifted off of me and I could suddenly hear words that Jamie had spoken to me all those months ago in his crappy bedsit.
‘That’s my little sister, Sophie. She died. She
was murdered, four years ago.’

“Oh God,” I muttered, feeling my eyes fill with tears as reality of it all sunk in. Jamie had murdered his little sister when he was fourteen?

“You okay? You look a bit pale. Want to sit down?” Mark offered taking hold of my elbow and guiding me to sit back into my car.

My heartbeat was so loud that it was almost deafening as I pictured the little girl from the ruined photo, the smiling one wearing the yellow dress. She had been murdered….. by her brother? My boyfriend?

There had to be some mistake, there had to be some explanation for it - maybe an accident but he was charged with murder? I needed to see him. I needed to look him in the eye and ask him. I needed him to tell me that the person that I’d fallen hopelessly in love with, wasn’t in fact an act, that the Jamie Cole that had stolen my heart actually existed and wasn’t just some delusion.

Had I really let myself fall in love with a murderer?

~ Ellie ~

Pushing Mark’s hands off of me, I twisted in my seat, facing the front, pulling my keys out at the same time. My hands were shaking so badly that it took three attempts to get them in the ignition.

Mark leant into the car and frowned at me angrily. “What the hell are you doing?” he growled.

I gulped and turned the engine over, groaning in frustration when it roared loudly but didn’t start.

“No!” I cried angrily, slamming my hand on the steering wheel. Now really wasn’t the time for my stupid car to conk out on me! I tried again, this time pumping the gas - finally the engine caught, spluttering a few times before ticking along nicely.

“Ellie, where are you going? Do you really think you should be driving? Your damn hands are shaking!” he shouted angrily, moving quickly and grabbing for the keys to turn the car off.

“Mark, get out!” I ordered, knocking his hand away and then shoving on his chest as hard as I could. I put the car into drive and crept forward, making him jump backwards so that I wouldn’t crush his toes. The forward momentum made the door start to swing inward, so I gripped the handle and caught it, slamming it shut as I headed out of the parking lot.

The drive to his apartment seemed to take forever. Questions were forming in my head, so many questions. And anger, a lot of anger was settling in the pit of my stomach because the guy I was in love with hadn’t told me any of this. I asked him to be honest with me and he’d told me about the cars - he also told me he did other stuff for this Brett guy, but he wouldn’t tell me what. I knew it was bad though, I knew he hated doing it, I knew that he didn’t sleep properly on the nights that his knuckles were bruised. But I never pushed the subject because he didn’t want me involved. Murder was different. And this was his past; he’d lied to me by keeping this from me, allowing me to fall in love with a person that didn’t actually exist!