The Forsaken (13 page)

“Kevin, she was a prostitute. How much could you care about her?”

“She was a human being, man. She’s had her stuff to deal with, same as me. You think you’re so righteous ’cause you got that priest you can run to?”

“I never said that.”

“I loved her. For me it wasn’t just the sex. I’ve only slept with her a few times, and that’s the God’s honest truth.” Kevin wiped his nose. “Do you know what it’s like to be afraid to go to sleep? Do you have any idea what it’s like to feel completely and utterly alone?”

Jude nodded.

“That’s why I wouldn’t do it. She’s the only one I’ve ever been with who saw something else. Not the mistake you and Dad saw. Not the city trash I know that cop out there thinks I am. She was different.” Kevin swallowed hard. “You gotta believe me. I didn’t kill her. I swear.”

“Convincing me is one thing. Convincing them is another. Who killed her, then, Kevin? Somebody has to pay.”

There was a long pause. “I don’t know.”

“Give me anything. Has anyone been talking? I can’t give my boss ‘I don’t know.’ It’s not gonna fly. Do you want them to lock you up? Because this department can be ruthless when they want to be. They’ll lock you up. And they’ll feel nothing. To them, you’re just a shut file. And if…when this goes to court, the judge is gonna want to see you swing.”

“I told Crystal I wanted more. You believe that?” Kevin said, half smiling. He hadn’t heard a word. “The kid who swore he’d never be happy. She asked me to promise her that we’d move back to her family’s place. Said they’d forgiven her for dancing and working the night shift. Guess her folks own some farm in redneck Omaha. Middle of God-knows-where.” Kevin’s eyes stared into space as he imagined the lives they could’ve had.

Jude watched Kevin bleed tears.

“She wanted to stop all this. And I wanted her to. I hated watching her go, Jude. I can’t be by myself anymore. I’m no good that way. I just can’t be alone. You get that?”

“You’re not alone.”

“I paid her for her company, not for sleeping with me. I loved her. Besides, I wasn’t even there tonight.”

Jude looked like a brick wall had hit him square in the face. “Where’d they find you?”

“I was several blocks down. Thought I’d get as far away as I could. Saw those red and blues from a mile away.”

“You didn’t have to run.”

Kevin rubbed his eyesore. “Right.”

“If you weren’t at the apartment tonight, then what was
she
doing there? Was Crystal living with you?”

“I told her I was serious about us. Real trip, isn’t it? We’d move wherever, as long as she’d agree to love me.” Kevin ran his fingers through his hair. He scratched at his scalp, frustrated, anxious. “Crystal had a key to my place. I gave her one about a month ago. I went out for a half-hour, tops, to grab us some grub and a bottle of Jack. I wanted to celebrate, you know? Like they do in the movies.”

“Celebrate what?” Jude asked.

“I was gonna give her a ring.” Kevin tossed a plastic bubble on the table. Inside it was a cheap carnival ring from a vending machine. “I’m the hopeless romantic after all.”

“You swear you didn’t see her at all today?”

“Swear it. I was walking home when I heard those sirens. I split ’cause I had some coke stashed in my kitchen. Not a whole lot of options for a three-time loser.”

“Everybody always wants to run.”

Suddenly, the chief pulled open the door and stepped inside. “Time’s up, Foster. This isn’t getting us anywhere. It’s nearly three a.m. Get this trash out of my sight.”

“Mike, please don’t make me do this.”

“If you don’t, I will. I’m sorry, but this is how it is. He camps here tonight.”

With gritted teeth, Jude walked around the table and handcuffed his brother. “I’ll find a way to help you,” he said.

“No! You believe me, don’t you? Well, don’t you? Say something to him, bro! You can’t take me. Please! Please!”

Mike stood rigidly in the doorway when Kevin swung his leg up high and kicked the chief in the kneecap with as much force as a college field kicker. Curses filled the hallway as the big man dropped to the floor.

Jude hurried to get his brother away from the chief before something worse happened. They rounded the corner and walked fast toward the prison cells, where other convicts were taken. Taunts bloomed in the stagnant air. Charlie, one of the night officers, unlocked a cell door with a smirk.

“Guess that cold day in hell finally came,” Charlie said. “Never thought I’d see the day you’d lock your own flesh and blood up in here. No single cells either.”

Jude took the cuffs off his brother and shut the metal cage. Kevin reached out for a hand to hold. “Don’t leave me here, Jude. I didn’t kill her. I swear on Mom’s life. I didn’t kill her. What can I do?”

“Pray.” The advice sounded cheap, especially coming from him.

Kevin didn’t seem capable of letting go, but Jude was, and slowly, he slipped out of his brother’s sweaty, terrified grip.

18

A COLD WIND SCRAPED
against Jude’s face. Felt like his skin might crack and tear to pieces at any second. All proof that he was actually still human should have dissipated the moment he crossed through the double-paned department doors and out into the concrete world. It was a matter of hours, perhaps minutes, before his body would resort to shutting down completely.

As he scanned the grounds outside the building, he caught a glimpse of the existence he despised but desperately clung to in order to find purpose. Alleyway drunks. Needle-hungry scum. Backseat dealers and children with no fathers and no remedy for the pain. Not much different from the terrible life swimming in the puddles of Hollow Lane. But there was loathing for this kind of infected skin tonight.

Sigh. Deep breath. Blink. Cough. Sigh. The movements of his run-down coffin frame made little difference now. No stars. Low light. How long before the regret grew claws?

Was Kevin huddling in a wet corner, emotionless and empty and waiting for salvation?

Or was he seconds away from cutting to the end credits just to see who gets out alive?

Paranoia kept Jude completely frozen on the sidewalk he’d been down a thousand and one times before. He had to go back. He should go back to break his brother free.
What are you thinking?
He tried to take another step.
Go back, you heartless...
One more step, more like a crawl.
Get him out
. But the fear of not knowing held him still.

A plume of polluted air climbed up his nose. His nostrils flared with disgust.

“What are you doing?” came a soft but purposeful voice.

Jude recognized it immediately, the partner he’d been placed with not by choice but circumstance. It wasn’t supposed to be here, amidst the wanderers and the nightmare thoughts.

At length, he replied, “You’ll think I’m crazy. I can’t move from this spot.”

Rachel pulled her car around so she could converse face to face. “I don’t think you’re crazy. It’s obvious you care about your brother. I wish I had that.”

“No, you don’t. Leaving him in there to rot until Mike finds something to let him off makes me sick.”

“Guilty ’til proven innocent.”

“Yeah,” Jude forced out. “What are
you
doing here?”

“Counting traffic lines.” She smirked. “Mike asked me to go home, but it didn’t seem right going home to sleep when I knew you were in there. How was it?”

“I had to lock up my own brother. How do you think it was?”

“This sucks. But you knew he wasn’t going to budge. We had nothing to help Kevin out. In fact, tonight was one of the easiest, cut-and-dry cases I’ve seen in a while.”

“That’s what Whitney thinks. That’s what Mike thinks, but my brother isn’t a murderer.”

“What now?” she asked.

“I feel so wrong to leave him here like this. There are too many holes, Rachel. I think I know who did this. I’ll figure it out for sure, and when I do, I’m gonna shove Whitney’s cocky face in—”

Rachel yawned. “You said
think
, Jude.
Think
isn’t good enough.”

He hated conceding to the haunting lack of evidence.

“There’s nothing you can do for him here, standing on the street corner. Besides, I don’t have enough singles to leave a tip.”

His eyes slanted. “Did you just make a joke?”

“I think so. I must be really tired. Never know what I’m going to regret. Speaking of tired, you and I should both get some sleep.”

There was a slightly awkward pause.

“Not together,” she corrected. “But we should sleep. Separately. In our own, individual locations.”

“I get it,” Jude said. “But I don’t sleep much.”

“Well, it was only a suggestion. You could be like me and go count traffic lines for two hours.”

“You shouldn’t be out here this late,” he returned, changing the subject. “These parts turn ugly sometimes. It can get dangerous.” He couldn’t help but identify the hypocrisy in his tone.

“Thanks for the warning.”

“I have to help him,” he said, his mind drifting. “I have to.”

She stared at him through the opening of the car window. He could see sympathy mixing with the stains of eye shadow and faded blush. If this were any other night, he would have thought she looked beautiful.

* * *

“You’re running on almost thirty hours,” Jude mumbled to himself before crashing onto his pillow. He hadn’t even bothered removing his jacket. His eyes were heavy. He would be sleeping soon, and the bad dreams would come to deliver the torment spurred by far-too-real memories.

Everything came rushing at once, before his eyes were even closed. The images still had violent life. The dream, it was happening again.

As he sank into his dream-state body, he felt the push of pale breath leave his lungs. Like smoke. He knew where he was. This place. This time. He was stuck for the moment in the past he had wanted these long years to disappear. It was the night Morgan Cross left him for dead.

Jude stared down at his hands, at the lines on his palms he was sure would soon be stained red. It was always the same dream. He was a figure consumed and weathered. His teeth chattered behind a quivering mouth. Fear. Denial. They were one here. The same damp air he’d experienced the night he was betrayed was recreated now in vivid detail. He could taste the wetness in the air.

Fog slithered at the bottom of the city landscape. The panic already flooded his mind and his bones. But this panic didn’t help him run any faster. Every movement happened slowly, like a jittery picture struggling to find focus. A tight fist was pulsing at his side, next to his gun. His stomach twisted. He’d been chasing the shadow for what seemed like miles, and every hair on his arm was a stiff sentinel ready for war.

Suddenly, he was transported. It was strange how motions occurred in the dream world. In one blink you were running like hell was chasing you or you were chasing it, and the next blink you were standing still within a new prison you couldn’t escape. All he was certain of was the steel-like drip at the back of his throat, the one that told him that if he weren’t careful, he would surely die. But he’d lived this torment before, hadn’t he? Could he die…in here?

The aged cathedral before him seemed to shoot up out of the earth and the ruptured pavement. It breathed. It lived. This place of worship stood heights above most other buildings within a hundred-meter radius, almost scratching at the belly of the dark sky. The figures carved into its stone face possessed a violent nature. Were they holy or demonic creatures? Unfurled wings spread out, and hands clinging to sharp staffs were made clear in the darkness. His memory painted these strange things with precision.

Fast forward.

Jude readied his fist to strike his first blow. The punch nearly shook Morgan Cross off his feet. He was able to hit him several more times before his partner repaid the violence. Slivers of white paint hung against the blood-splattered wall. Drops of rain trickled down from the sky and passed through the holes in the ceiling. Broken glass crunched beneath their feet as the two men warred inside the upper room.

Jude countered a number of deadly blows before Morgan reached for a blade and swung it. Unlit candles lay hacked in wax pieces on the black curtains made to keep the treacheries of the world out. With fervor, Morgan thrust inward, cutting Jude once, twice. Jude’s wrist dripped thin streams of red onto the carpet.

It didn’t take long to react. Jude hurled sharp objects at his partner, but Morgan was relentless. Only one could survive, Jude knew. He embraced it all as if this were the first time he was living it. He felt the smash of his head against the wall, bothered by the crunch his jaw made at the point of impact. He experienced his bones shaking under his bruises. He tasted the anger in his cheek.

Morgan slid toward Jude for the kill. He dragged the blade through Jude’s side, slicing into his ribs. Puddles of blood splashed onto Morgan’s face and hands. Jude couldn’t move for three breaths. The blistering pain in his ribcage echoed through his entire body. He blinked, unable to rip out the steel Morgan had abandoned there. A sadistic set of eyes stared into him then. It was a long, horrifying moment. Hopelessly, Jude collapsed to his knees. There was no strength to even scream. The silence came out through a wide, tormented mouth. He was dying.