Wrong Chance (34 page)

“Yeah, it's time I pick up the pieces of my life and put them back together.”

“Girl, I've been rooting for you from day one. I knew you'd pull through. I'll be back in town in a couple of weeks. Let's get together and do something.”

“Okay.”

“Here's Eric.”

Buank. Buank. Buank. Buank.

“So what are we calling this novel?” Eric said.

“Harm's Way.”

“Like how that rings. Can't wait to read it. How long before you're finished?”

“I'm done. Check your email. Told you I'm back and I'm ready to grind.”

County Prosecutor Scenario Davenport was frustrated.

“Mr. Livingood, I don't have many questions for you,” Scenario said.

“Good, good. Maybe I cans get myself home in time for kickoff. Ohio State is going alls the way to the national championship this season.”

“I'm sure. You testified that you rented an apartment to a woman by the name of Cashmaire Fox.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“And you've never seen this woman?”

“Ma'am, I don't think I'm liking your tone. Are you being funny?”

“No, I'm not. Answer the question, Mr. Livingood. Have you seen her? Can you describe her?”

“No, ma'am.”

“You have no documentation that the court can view to substantiate your testimony.”

“No.”

“So we're supposed to take your testimony as credible because of your nose? Are you part bloodhound, Mr. Livingood?”

“No. But my nose knows. In fact, Ms. Davenport, you smell just like Cashmaire Fox. Bet you a dollar to a dime you's wearing a fragrance called Thin Air.”

Scenario looked woozy. She clutched the witness box, as if she were trying to stay on her feet. “No…no further questions, Your Honor.”

The bailiff rushed to her. “Let me help you, Ms. Davenport.”

She made eye contact with Chance as the bailiff led her to the state's table and was chilled to the bone marrow. Evil—pure—crept from behind his gorgeous smile and poured out his engaging blue eyes. He looked at the clock just as the courtroom door swung open. A FedEx delivery man, bottom heavy with a receding hairline, walked straight to the state's table and handed Scenario a manila envelope. She opened the package and found a lone sheet of paper that read:

DEFENSE EXHIBIT A

Law 29: Plan All The Way To The End

Her eyes found Chance's again.

“Winner winner chicken dinner,” he said.

Stormie stood up. “The defense calls the Hieroglyphic Hacker herself, Mrs. Cashmaire Fox, to the stand.”

First the audience and jury gasped. Then they buzzed with excitement as their gazes bounced around the courtroom waiting for Cashmaire to step forward.

“What is going on here, Mr. Bishop?” Judge Ronald Adrine said, rubbing his temples. Scenario figured he was not happy with his court being made a mockery.

“I'll tell you, you shithead,” Chance said, standing up behind the defense table. “You fuckin' jerks don't recognize my wife because she had reconstructive surgery on her face after a car accident and disappeared. She came back passing herself off as Scenario Davenport. Me and Stormie here figured it out.” He turned to Scenario. “Ain't that right, honey? Tell these assholes how you fooled us all and killed my buddies.”

Members of the press stood on their chairs to snap pictures of the expression on Scenario's face. Brilliant bursts of light flashed through the room. Whispers rose to the ceiling.

“Chance,” Scenario said, “I thought…why—” She passed out.

“Your Honor, my serial killer wife here.” He looked at Cash on the floor as the bailiff worked to revive her and Hakeem limped through the gate with cuffs in hand. “She has a condition called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, meaning she's got the guts of a dude on the inside like that track star bimbo Caster Semenya from South Africa who won the eight-hundred-meter competition at the world championship that everybody was making a fuss about. Check my wife's DNA against the DNA found at the crime scenes and I'm sure you assholes will figure the rest out. She set me up and was gonna prosecute the old Chancester to see it through.” Then: “Now one of you ass wipes get these shackles off me. And I wanna press charges against Detective Eubanks for attacking me when I was only trying to warn Jazz.”

T
hey swarmed Apartment 012 like a school of honey bees. It was a modest one-bedroom dwelling outfitted with a three-piece couch and a Walmart dinette set.

“Son of a bitch,” Hakeem said when he limped through the door and came face to face with a fifty-five-gallon, hexagon-shape aquarium. Its light illuminated the tiny deep gold and brown eight-armed mollusks. It was hard to believe the charming, cute little creatures were capable of murder. Hakeem tapped the glass. All eleven of them flashed bright iridescent blue rings, curling their tentacles as if they were prize-fighters raring back to deliver a knockout blow. “Now we can say we actually saw a Blue-ring octopus.”

Aspen looked on in astonishment. “We put the wrong person on trial.”

“He was telling the truth about warning Jazz. I got a lame leg 'cause I attacked him.”

“In here, you guys,” Tony, the crime scene tech, called from the bedroom. “You gotta see this.”

When Hakeem and Aspen entered the bedroom, Tony lifted a pillow on the bed to reveal a .45 automatic. “Same type used to murder Marcus. Think she was ambitious enough to murder for a promotion?”

“It wouldn't surprise me,” Aspen said. “Nothing will ever surprise
me after this.” She opened the closet door and stood in front of a wardrobe of high-end clothes. “The bitch knows how to dress.” Aspen pulled a bloody outfit from the closet. “Same outfit we got her wearing on camera going into her office the night Leon Page was killed.”

“Okay,” Hakeem said. “Print the place and bag and tag it.” Then he froze.

“What?” Aspen followed his gaze to a perfume bottle on the dresser.

“Thin Air. The old man's nose knew. He called it.”

“Check this out.” Aspen gestured out the window.

Hakeem and Tony Adams joined her. They all looked to the building's parking lot at a red Infiniti.

“A female serial killer with male DNA.” Aspen shook her head. “What this bitch did will be studied for years.”

T
he October chill nipped at Jazz's ears as she stood in front of a burial plot in Lakeview Cemetery. Foliage covered the headstone. Tears leaked from beneath her sunglasses. In the distance a John Deer backhoe's entrenching shovel took hungry bits out of the earth. She hoped it wasn't the preparation of a gravesite for another child. She felt Jaden's eyes on her; his intense gaze heated her back.

“Well,” Jaden said, “what are you waiting on?”

She didn't want him to see her tears. “I used to want this, now I don't,” Jazz said without turning around.

He said, “It's been a whole year of—”

“Exactly what we both needed to grow. You changed my life, Jaden. Taught me how to open up and love again.”

Jaden came up and stood beside her, basketball wedged between his arm and narrow body. “We taught each other a few things.”

“Yeah. I know how to dribble a basketball with my eyes closed.”

They laughed. It felt really good to laugh with Jaden.

“I'm not poisoning myself with anger anymore.” He spun the ball on his finger. “I know the meaning of forgiveness because of you.”

Jazz wiped her tears to make way for new ones.

“I forgive you,” Jaden said. “Hope they got a basketball court up there. I'm ready.”

“So am I.” Jazz removed her sunglasses and Washington Wizards
ball cap and placed them on the grave. “Ready for a new start.” She cleared the leaves from the headstone.

IN LOVING MEMORY OF

JADEN EUBANKS

October 16, 1995 – October 16, 2010

“Happy birthday,” Jazz whispered through the tears.

•  •  •

“Keebler,” Jaden had said, “you wanna go outside and play some ball with me until Daddy gets home?”

She barked a
let's get it on.

“Get the basketball, girl, get the ball while I finish this sandwich.” He bit the peanut butter and jelly.

Keebler, tail wagging, left the kitchen and returned nudging the ball along with her nose.

“And don't you even try taking it easy on me because it's my birthday.”

Keebler barked her agreement as Jaden threw on a thick sweat shirt. Outside, the cold air pushing off the lake made Jaden think that video games would've been a better choice. With the earbuds to his iPod in his ears and the music loud enough to cause damage, Jaden planted his feet and took a three-point shot. He watched it soar through the cold air and miss its mark. The ball ricocheted off the rim. It shot down the driveway like it was powered by gas and into the street of Spring Bank Lane. Keebler barked and took off after it. Jaden ran behind her. He stopped in his tracks at the end of the driveway, near the light pole on the tree lawn, when he saw a blue Mercedes about to plow into Keebler. He screamed, “Keebler!”

•  •  •

“Slow down, Danica Patrick,” Cash had said, likening Jazz's driving to that of the famous female NASCAR driver.

“Girl, I'm not driving that fast.” Jazz had it under control so she kept her eyes glued on Cashmaire. “Whoa, back up. How come you can't have babies? What's the matter with you?” Jazz had grown tired of pretending she didn't know Cash had complete AIS years ago. She hoped Cash came clean so Jazz didn't have to live with the secret of knowing any longer.

Jazz's foot was so deep on the pedal the residential houses blew by them at 56 mph.

“It's complicated.” Tears fell out Cash's eyes. She'd been crying since they left the airport. “I'm—Jazz, watch out!”

Jazz's head snapped back to the road. A huge pitbull-looking dog was in the middle of the road less than three feet in front of her. The only way to avoid hitting the dog, she figured, was to try and dodge it. She jerked the steering wheel hard to the left and stood on the brakes with both feet. In that instance she made eye contact with a teenage boy as the Mercedes careened into and crushed him between her front end and a light pole, killing him instantly and throwing Cash through the windshield.

H
akeem eased the Hummer away from the house as city workers replaced the crippled light pole on his tree lawn. He reached over to the passenger's seat and stroked Keebler, her head out the window, tongue hanging out her mouth. “Eventually everything changes,” he said as the light pole came down in his rearview mirror.

Almost twenty minutes after leaving home, Hakeem heavily leaned on his cane and hobbled up on Jazz kneeling at Jaden's gravesite. His halting gait was more pronounced and painful now that the cold weather sunk its icy teeth into his injuries. Jazz's face was wet with tears. Keebler barked and started pulling hard on her leash.

“Keebler, what's gotten into you?” he said as she pulled away from him.

“It's Jaden,” Jazz said. “She can see him.”

“You're serious, aren't you?”

She nodded. “He's been with me since the accident. No one has ever believed me but Cash because she saw him too. She said right at the moment she came out of the coma, he was standing beside her, touching her hand. She said they made eye contact. I know it was him who saved her from Chance, because he was taking her off life support.”

Hakeem leaned on the cane, keeping pressure off his aching leg. “It baffled me for weeks how you were able to get by Keebler that day and make it to the second floor of my house. She would have mauled you to death if you weren't with me or Jaden. You see Chance had to shoot her to stop her.” He paused to let a surge of pain pass. “Then I remembered something my grandmother told me when I was a little guy, much younger than Jaden.”

Jazz looked at him as he pretended not to struggle with lowering himself to the ground to kneel beside her.

“Grandma told me that dogs can see human souls that roam the earth. Jaden was with you that day, wasn't he?”

She nodded, tears rolling off her face. “He showed me where you hide the spare key behind that false brick to the left of the door.” Then: “He's here with us now. Right there with Keebler.”

He cut his eyes to Keebler. She wagged her tail and ran in a circle and occasionally stood on her hind legs like she was playing with someone.

“Jaden is a fine young man. He's taken good care of me, you know.”

Hakeem said nothing; his tears said it all.

Jazz gestured to the headstone next to Jaden's that read:
Gwynn Eubanks.
“Jaden's mother?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. My wife passed from breast cancer almost two years ago now.” He collected himself and pointed. “My mother is right there and my grandparents are over there.”

“You just try and stay out this ground for as long as you can.”

“I'm working on it.”

Jazz said, “I have a daughter here too. She was murdered in my belly.”

“I didn't know.”

“Wherever Leon is, he's answering for it.” She wiped her tears, but the attempt was useless. “Mr. Eubanks, she didn't do it. Cash is a lot of things but a murderer she is not. So I need you to promise me that you will never stop searching for the truth because I know that something about the way it went down rubs you wrong. It's that irritation that I'm begging you not to ignore. If you do, an innocent woman is going to die and you'll break the promise you already made to me.”