Jolie Blonde (Vigilare Book 3) (22 page)

Johnny grins, standing his ground. Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, he pulls his license from his wallet and hands it to the officer as he sniffs the air between their intrusive faces. “Nope. I was wrong. It’s not bacon. Glazed? Jelly-filled?” Johnny presses on with the offensive stereotype of a doughnut-eating cop as he looks down momentarily sizing up the officer’s ample waistline. “You look more like a bear claw man to me.” He chuckles, his pale blues once again meeting the officer’s, challengingly.

“Johnny,” Brianna reprimands through tight lips.

“Well, are we going or what?” Lon intervenes, attempting to break the officer’s concentration from his mouthy and provoking comrade.

“No. Not you,” the officer responds to Lon while maintaining his authoritative posture and glare in Johnny’s face. “We’ll take James Dean, here.” He assimilates Johnny to Dean’s
Rebel Without A Cause
character as he mashes his hand down on his shoulder, digging into the trigger point there with his merciless grip.

The pain causes Johnny to drop to his knees.

Brianna runs to his side, chastising the officer, “Is that really necessary?”

“I believe he’s resisting arrest,” the officer says. “Doesn’t he look awful resistant to you?” He looks to his partner for support. His partner nods. Coming to his aid, he helps the officer handcuff Johnny, jerking him up off the ground onto his feet.

“Shaw named me, not him,” Lon argues, offering up his wrists yet again.

“I’m the one responsible for blowing up that laboratory. I did it.” Brianna pounds her hands against her chest, walking alongside the officers as they escort Johnny to the patrol car. “To get even with Dr. Shaw for killing my parents. Why don’t you believe me?”

“Run his license,” the officer hands Johnny’s identification off to his partner, evading Brianna, as he knows nothing about her parents’ death nor Dr. Shaw’s participation for that matter.

“What about law of evidence? Legal burden of proof?” Brianna conjures up arguments from her novice criminal justice experience. “You have no proof that he did anything. I did it!” Her voice rises. “And you can’t even prove that.”

“Not in my job description. That’s what the courts are for,” the officer deflects. “I don’t know what kind of twisted threesome you kids have going on here. We see this all the time. First, everyone wants to confess. Be the
hero.
But in the last hour, every single one of ya will tattle to save your own hide.”

“Seems as though Mr. Vito has quite an affinity for trespassing, theft, speeding and a general lack of respect for authority,” the officer’s partner reads off Johnny’s rap sheet from inside the patrol car.

“Proof
enough for me.” The officer grins at Brianna as he forcefully positions Johnny into the backseat of the cruiser.

Johnny lets loose a gluttonous laugh as his eyes spot an empty
Krispy Kreme
doughnut box on the floorboard. “Too fucking good to be true,” he crows, his swearing twofold—blatant disrespect toward the officers and to further gouge Lon.

The officer slams the door in Johnny’s face, making his way to the driver’s seat.

“This isn’t right.” Brianna bangs her fists on the hood of the cruiser. Leaning down to Johnny’s rear window, she begs his forgiveness, “I’m so sorry. I’ll get you out. I promise.”

“Don’t do me any favors,” Johnny dismisses, looking straight ahead and ignoring her plea as the patrol car pulls away.

“Dammit,” Brianna sputters, turning around to find Lon looking at her expectantly. “What?” she charges.

“What’d you do? Yesterday, at ETNA? And how did Johnny know about it?” He crosses his well-muscled arms over his chest.

“You’re better off not knowing. And I don’t know how Johnny knew about it.” She heads for her silver coupe, muttering under her breath, “I’m going to wring his cousin’s neck.”

“What was that?” Lon meets her at the driver’s side door. “Did you seriously blow up that laboratory?” He eyes her as if he’s not sure he even recognizes the woman standing before him, a far cry from the sweet, benevolent girl her grew up with.

“Yes, I did,” she bites.

“But, you were here with me,” he says, hoping that she tells a fib to protect Johnny.

She exhales, giving in to the notion of sharing her secret with Lon. “The same way Dr. Shaw didn’t get his hands dirty when he killed my parents. There is no proof tracing the lab explosion back to me. But it was my idea. My money that paid to get it done.”

“And you’re proud of that?” Lon questions, the conviction with which she makes the declaration a bit too indulgent and satisfied. “Brie, you could have killed someone.”

“Who? Dr. Shaw? Dr. Godfrey?” She asks with condemnation as if their lives are expendable. “Shaw’s goons killed my parents, upon his order. And that freak Dr. Godfrey sticks needles in people’s veins to carry out Shaw’s dirty work.” She points to the inside of her elbow and Lon’s, where the tiny black and blue dots have grown more faint. “Big flippin’ deal if they were inside the laboratory!”

Lon notices the fresh scar on the palm of her hand as it extends to him upon pointing out the crook of her elbow. “What’s this?” He grabs her hand, gently caressing the mangled, beaded-up flesh.

“Dr. Shaw. The same Dr. Shaw you seem to be so concerned with the welfare of,” she huffs. “He wanted to see if there was something
special
about my scar. So he sliced it open.” Her emerald greens beg of Lon’s steel blues with the admission, to understand her dire move to blow up the lab.

His jaw clenches, his teeth grinding uncomfortably at the thought of Dr. Shaw putting his paltry hands on Brianna, let alone causing her pain. “I wish you would have come to me,” Lon’s truth escapes him—it isn’t necessarily the blowing up of the laboratory that distresses him but that she went to someone else for help.

“And I wish you would understand I am not that little damsel in distress you grew up with.” She pulls her hand away from him, adamant that he see the changes in her adult self.

“No. I guess you’re not,” he reflects, his mind still attempting to wrap itself around the fact that the jolie blonde standing in front of him actually had the gall to set up an explosion.

“Look, I didn’t intend on killing anyone. I just wanted to shake them up a bit. Do you know they watch us?” she asks, repulsed.

Lon nods, aware of such a disturbing fact.

“And that doesn’t bother you? Propel you to do something about it?”

“Bother me? Yes. Enough to blow them up? No, Brie.” He runs his fingers through his hair, wincing as his hands come in contact with a goose egg on the back of his head from his rumble with Johnny. “That’s why I was going to that lab. Letting them test me. So they’d leave you alone.”

Brianna chuckles sarcastically. “They’re never going to leave us alone. Not until they find what they’re looking for.”

“Did he? Dr. Shaw? Find what he was looking for? Your palm?” Lon talks in semi phrases until his chaotic thoughts catch up with themselves, his brain and his body a bit exhausted given the morning’s events.

Brianna shakes her head. “Nothing. It’s like what you and I saw. That night at the marsh. Wasn’t even there.” She shrugs, the fleeting fluorescent emerald green glow of their palms after being cut by the skull seems as foggy as a daydream.

“I know,” Lon mutters, equally deluded. “I haven’t seen it since. You?”

“I thought…” she contemplates the vision she had when he and Johnny’s bloody saliva clashed in the dirt. “Sometimes I want so bad to see it that maybe I conjure it up somehow,” she reasons, defeated. “But, no, I really don’t think I’ve seen it since that night at the marsh, either.”

“I don’t know.” Lon shrugs. “Maybe it has to be activated or something. Blood brothers,” he offers up precariously with a sardonic grin. He mimes cutting his palm with a knife, the same treatment given tenderly to Brianna’s palm just before he grinds them together, enjoying her touch if only her hand.

“You may be on to something,” her voice peaks plausibly, her head cocked, postulating his casual theory. “We’ll test that out later. I have to go.” She quickly brings herself back to the matter at hand—Johnny taking the rap for something she did.

“Let me get cleaned up.” Lon considers his haphazard appearance. “I’ll go with you.”

“No. I don’t have time to wait,” she evades, unwilling to involve him in her plans, for his own safety.

“It’ll only take a minute.” He pulls on her hand to accompany him inside.

“Okay. Go. Hurry. I’ll wait here.”

He looks at her, scrutinizing. “You better be here when I get out of the shower.”

“Where would I go?” She smiles reassuringly, her arms innocently perched out to the sides of her shoulders.

“Ah,” Lon growls, giving in.

With one last ditch effort to solidify his accompanying her, he wraps his hulking frame around hers, his lips seeking hers headily. The cut at the corner of his mouth causing him pain, he ignores it, fully delivering his taste to her while satisfying his own ravenous appetite. Feeling Brianna begin to melt into his embrace, he pulls away, hoping it’s enough to propel her to wait for the follow-up.

Hurrying inside, he looks over his shoulder at the front door, making sure she still waits. She does, leaning up against her silver coupe, an admirable upward curve spread across her lips.

Click! Click! Click!
The cadence rings through the corridor leading to Johnny’s holding cell in Orleans Parish Jail.

Johnny lies in the center of a dingy, paper thin mattress that rests atop a rusted and squeaky metal frame. The pathetic
bed
taking up nearly the entire cramped holding cell, he rests his arms up over his head, his eyes staring blankly at the familiar white-bricked ceiling above. He is unstirred by his visitor, the pungent smell of the
old man
cologne wafting about enough to telltale.

“Ahem,” Dr. Shaw clears his agitated throat, standing in front of the cell.

Johnny does not respond. His elbows remain perched above, his hands interwoven and providing a pillow for the back of his head as his gaze purposely ignores Dr. Shaw, maintaining its trajectory on the ceiling.

“Something interesting up there, Mr. Vito?” Dr. Shaw comments, his eyes now perusing the sullied, white brick ceiling above.

“More interesting than a conversation with you,” Johnny finally replies, still refusing to look at him. “You’re wasting your time.” He further internalizes the sentiment, having lost count of how often he has said it to the conniving doctor upon his solicitation for cooperation.

“You need me now,” Dr. Shaw boasts. “Seems you’ve gotten yourself into another pickle.” A high-pitched chuckle emerges, rather sinister in its tone. “Taking the fall for your ingrate friends, once again,” his voice lowers, disproving, the concept of sacrifice completely foreign to him.

Johnny kicks his feet off the side of the bed, catapulting himself into a standing position as he takes one long stride toward the steel bars separating him from the menacing doctor. “I don’t need anybody,” he clarifies, his chin jutting forward pridefully.

“Ha,” Dr. Shaw emits, disbelieving. “You need her. You’d sacrifice anything for the girl,” he speaks of Johnny’s affection for Brianna. “I see the way you look at her.” A reminder that he watches their every move. “I could arrange a…mishap,” he finds a fitting term, the corners of his mouth flexing, “for
young Lon.”
Exaggerating the affectionate moniker created by Dr. Godfrey, his eyes roll, depreciating. “You could have her all to yourself.”

“Don’t do me any favors,” Johnny defends. “I want nothing to do with you.”

“You think Mr. Castille is your friend. His parents took you in. So you owe him?” Dr. Shaw’s voice peaks argumentatively. “You’re here. Taking the fall for him and his little brat girlfriend, again. What will it take for you to see that he is not your friend? Neither is Ms. Bentley. They use you, Mr. Vito. You’re the patsy, don’t you see?”

He is unmoved by Dr. Shaw’s patronizing. “I don’t care what they are…friend or foe…they’ll never be as lousy as you.” Johnny grips the steel bars, his fists clenched about them, his face level and peering through the open space. “You’re garbage. Everything I love to hate.” He scans Dr. Shaw, standing there in his perfectly pressed clothing, his attitude, the expression on his face, even his scent—pompous and entitled—completely nauseating to the underdog-loving bad boy. “You’re worse than excrement. Didn’t think I knew that word, did ya?” Johnny challenges. “Shit. Feces. Dung.” He sniffs the air indulgently as if identifying the putrid smell in the presence of his visitor.

Dr. Shaw stiffens his posture. He does not speak, his narrow eyes taking care of his sentiment, press tighter together, full of reprimand for the disrespectful
punk
standing before him.

Johnny grins, further antagonizing. “Can’t stand it, can you? You’re used to
Yes-men.
‘Yes, sir. No, sir. Anything for you, sir.’” He mocks, standing erect like a soldier, ultimately idling back down to his casual
don’t give a damn
stance as he props his arms against the steel bars. “I despise you more than I like money or things…or people,” he adds, referring to Brianna, and Dr. Shaw’s promises of arranging a union with the jolie blonde. “Hell, I’m getting a hard-on just knowing that I’ve got something you want so bad, but you can’t have it.” An exaggerated shiver overcomes him from head to toe with the spiteful satisfaction.

“Be a shame if Ms. Bentley ended up like her parents. Lifeless at the bottom of a marsh,” Dr. Shaw threatens very nonchalant, measuring Johnny’s
like
for people. “Really give you something to be vengeful about.”

“Makes no difference to me.” Johnny shrugs, remaining calm and calling Dr. Shaw’s bluff. “Take that up with Castille.”

“Ha ha ha ha ha,” Dr. Shaw releases a low, drawn out chuckle. “And that’s precisely why I need you in my camp.” He proffers a folded, signed and blank check, shoving it into the pocket of Johnny’s t-shirt. Wiping his hands on his silk kerchief as if making contact with the bad boy may rub off some scum, he continues, “We’re not that different, you and me. Ambitious, self-serving, smart enough to know that a conscience only impedes success. Maybe that’s why you hate me so?” He purposely compares their likeness.