INK: Abstraction (37 page)

“McNab’s
not so sure that he had a heart attack at all. He thinks this had to
do with Miranda.” Eli spits her name like it’s rotten.

“Yeah, well, that
bitch is enough to give anyone a heart attack.” The disapproval
rings deep in my tone.

“Bottom line is
he’s fine,” Jason interrupts. “We’re going to
let them question you and you know the drill.”

“But first, in
case they don’t let us speak with you after.” Eli kneels
down beside me with one hand still on the table nearly touching my
fingers. “I came because we have some news that I wanted to be
the one to tell you.”

I inhale deeply in
preparation for whatever this is about, there’s no way this is
good news. “Okay.” I brace myself for the very worst.

“The family has
decided it’s best to go ahead and have the funeral.” He's
working hard not to get choked up.

“What funeral?”
Who the fuck died?

Jason presses his lips
into a thin line and leans forward. “Shay, Bryce has the
funeral set for tomorrow.”

Oh shit. I look at Eli
through tears that are spilling over at an alarming rate. “What?
Uncle Bryce planned a funeral?” That means they have proof that
he’s gone. He’s really gone. I’m working at not
becoming completely despondent.

“Yes honey, I’m
sorry. I tried to get him to postpone. But given the circumstances,
Bryce thinks it’s best to just have a small quiet gathering.”
Eli wants to put his hand on my shoulder. He’s hesitating, but
he finally does, and it’s like a salve that takes the edge off
the burn but doesn’t make it go away.

“Can’t we
stop this?” I bleat, getting more upset by the minute.

“No, he’s
Aiden’s next of kin. He has the final say right now.”
Jason is having trouble looking at me.

“Bryce thinks I
did it?” I ask in disbelief.

“I’m not
sure; I just wanted to be the one to tell you.” He looks at the
floor. “Especially since it will probably make the news and
you’ll see it.”

The door opens and a
guard comes in. “Miss Baynes, we’re going to take you
back to your cell.” He cuts Eli a hard angry look.

He points at Eli.
“Don’t put me in this position again. Got it?” he
says and shakes his head at Jason.

“Are you not
questioning her about the incident?” Eli asks.

“No, we know she
wasn’t involved.” He answers curtly and stands by the
door, waiting for Eli to follow him.

“Shay, remember
we have a hearing tomorrow, so they’ll transport you to the
courthouse and I’ll see you there, okay?” Jason hugs me
and whispers in my ear. “Hang in there, he needs you to keep it
together.”

I nod through my tears,
still trying to digest that there’s a funeral for Aiden and
that I won’t be there to say goodbye. I hope they put me in a
cell alone; I just want to cry all night long. I want to die, I want
to fall apart and die.

Harry

Shayleigh’s
been in jail for six weeks now. As much as I need to see her, I’ve
been learning quite a bit about this case. And I’ve been
keeping Miranda out of McNab’s way. I look toward the bathroom
where she’s showering then back out the window at the gray
swirling clouds above Seattle.

“All clean,”
she sing-songs from the bathroom door.

“Very good,
Miranda.” I try to show no emotion, nor do I turn around to
look in her direction.

“Do you need the
bathroom before I get dressed?” She has crept up right behind
me.

“No, I’m
fine.” My hand is in my pocket clutching her cell phone. I’ve
been checking through her messages and I’m rather disturbed by
some of what I found.

“Okay, I’ll
be out in a second.” She puts her hand on my shoulder for a
moment then it slides off as she walks away.

I’m going to have
to chalk that up as another one of my mistakes. Especially since now
I’m starting to see what Carl and McNab tried to warn me about.
When I hear the bathroom door click closed I pull her phone out of my
pocket and connect it via Bluetooth to my computer, downloading all
the message files. I’m going to get to the bottom of this, and
fast.

The sound of my phone
chirping cuts through the room like a knife. “This is Harry
Baynes.”

“Harry, it’s
McNab. We need you to get back down here.” He sounds more
urgent than normal.

“What’s
happened?” I ask.

“I have to go,
but everything’s okay. Just get back here.” He hangs up.

Damn it. I go to the
bathroom door and knock. “Miranda, get a move on, we have to
get back down to Florida, something’s happening.”

I pack the few
toiletries I have on the counter and I’m ready to go. I hope
I’ll be able to get in to see Shayleigh.

Shay

“Baynes,”
the guard that has never cared for me barks. “Pack your shit,
you’re out of here.”

“What?” I
shoot up in bed and hit my head on the bunk. Fuck, you’d think
after this long I’d stop doing that. “You mean, like
pack
pack?” I’m wondering if I heard her right. It just seems
so unlikely that after all this time I would get bail.

“Yup, that was
the order. You’ve got thirty.” She walks away from my
cell.

Huh, I’m not
going to question it. Even if it is some kind of clerical error, I’m
going to go with it. I’d do another thirty days in here just to
have Eli hold me for five minutes before they figure it out. It’ll
be worth it. My heart and body ache to be near him, smell him, hear
his voice that rolls like caramel. It's so easy to get lost in the
excitement of being near Eli again.

I pack the few
belongings I have, but leave the ramen and the pencils behind. I’m
ready to shed this beige jumpsuit.

I’m so excited,
not even the fact that I didn’t sleep a wink last night can get
me down. My eyes are puffy and red. I cried all night, coming to
terms with the fact that Aiden is really gone. For some reason the
funeral happening today just makes it real. It puts the final nail in
the coffin of my hope that he could still be alive out there.
Whatever they have in the way of evidence is enough to convince Uncle
Bryce that Aiden’s dead and for them to put me through a trial.
But now, maybe I can come to terms with it. The funeral may be a good
thing for me to get some closure. A nervous laugh escapes me as I
consider how tacky it might be for me to show at the funeral if I'm
done with the bail hearing on time.

My head starts to hang
with sadness, but I pop it back up, unwilling to let sadness cloud my
reunion with Eli. After lying with him and letting him hold me for as
long as he wants, I don’t know what’s next. I think Eli
will understand that I don’t want to get married on the same
day as Aiden’s funeral. We’ll have to wait until
tomorrow. Maybe by then my dad will have come to terms with it.

No, probably not.

Butterflies cinch my
stomach and I try to rationalize how it wouldn’t be poor form
to get married today. The thought of Eli ravaging me on our wedding
night tonight is enough to send the heat of the sun through me. I’m
going to see him tonight; he can have his way with me, married or
not. I just need to feel him near me.

I go through about five
hundred emotional shifts from absolute grief to elation in twenty
minutes. I’m ready. I sit on the edge of my bed and wait. Morin
comes to get me with a huge smile on her face.

“So you’re
out of here, huh?” She seems excited for me.

“Yup.” I
lift my eyebrows.

“Lucky girl.”
She leads me down the hallway. “After they finish the paperwork
here they’ll transport you to the courthouse. I’m not
sure why, usually we set you loose here and you’re on your
own.”

***

The ride from the jail
to the courthouse doesn’t feel nearly as bad as every other
ride, probably because I know I’m not getting back on this bus.
I have a hard time holding back tears of happiness. A hot surge
spirals through me thinking about Eli’s arms around me. I close
my eyes and smile.

Jason meets me in the
conference room of the courthouse. “One quick appearance and
you’re done. You can change into your clothes. This is all a
technicality. Honestly, you likely won’t even need to speak,
it’ll probably be better if you don’t.” He looks at
his phone and bolts out the door without giving me a chance to ask
him any questions. He’s rather perfunctory in how he’s
just hitting and running me. I don’t even know why I’ve
been released.

I look down at the bag
of clothes in my hand. I’d prefer he brought me something
rather than having to wear the clothes I had on when I was arrested.
I finish changing and knock on the door. A bailiff opens it and
escorts me down the hall. “Where’s Jason, my attorney?”
I ask.

“He had to go
handle some paperwork and asked me to take you to the court room.”

I spot Jason down the
hall and want to go to him, but being in jail for the last six weeks
I’m conditioned to stay with the guard. Jason’s having a
heated conversation with someone. There’s something about the
man that seems familiar, but I can’t quite place him.

He’s wearing a
tank top showing his well-built arms. They are thick and rippling,
covered in tattoos.
Wow, this guy is way hot
is all I can
think to myself. Thank God for t-shirts that tight. The shirt hugs
every last muscle on that man’s torso and oh good Lord is he
defined. The thought of Eli wafts through my mind; of course I can
totally look, I just can’t touch.

The man’s head is
shaved and he’s wearing dark sunglasses, which seems odd. I
immediately let my imagination run wild that this guy is some hired
gun that Jason employs for “special” situations like
mine. He's probably the “troubleshooter” that's
responsible for me getting out of jail.

There's an undeniable
chemical reaction happening inside. I wish I could take my eyes off
him, because some of the thoughts I’m having about him are
illegal in at least four states that I’m aware of. Jesus, I’ve
been in jail way too long. Okay, so any amount of time in jail is too
long. McNab's words haunt me again, “Is the whole world in
heat?”
Yes, McNab, we are.

The discussion between
Jason and the guy crosses into another level of heated when the man
whips his sunglasses off. I’m completely frozen in place; a
series of hot and cold tingles runs through my body like runaway
electricity on flailing high-power lines in a hurricane. My face goes
from hot to cold a hundred times in one second and tears free fall
from my face uncontrollably. My will finally reaches my feet and I
run toward him, away from the guard.

When I nearly reach him
I call out to him, “Aiden!”

I jump into his arms
and wrap my entire body and soul around him. His arms envelop me and
it feels like at this moment he will never let go of me again. It’s
him, it’s really him in all of his fucking asshole glory, and
it feels like home. He’s more solid, like he’s been
working out nonstop. His skin is darker from exposure to the sun, his
hair is shaved and he’s grown a beard, but it’s him, it
really is him. I knew it the second I saw those honey-brown eyes.

He holds me tight for
an eternity. I can feel his breath on my neck and he whispers in my
ear over and over, “I heard you.”

My sobbing subsides
slightly and I breathe into him. “I thought you were dead.”

He hesitates, but only
answers with, “I was.” I hear the smile in his voice. He
inhales deep through his nose. ”I can still smell your essence
under the scent of jail.”

He seals his lips over
mine and my first reaction is to kiss him back. After a moment I pull
back, this isn’t right. I’m with Eli, and after all I’ve
been through, all I’ve felt because of his absence, I’m
pissed. Who the hell does he think he is, kissing me? Fuck that. I
slide down from him and give him a good hard shove. “What the
fuck is wrong with you, Aiden?” I have to take a breath because
I can’t contain my anger and I feel my hands getting hot. “I
was in fucking jail for forty-three days, twelve hours and
twenty-seven minutes because of you. Where. Were. You?”

McNab comes up behind
me. “Hey kid, you’ve got bigger problems right now.”
He motions toward the front door in the atrium where I catch sight of
Eli pushing the door open so hard it makes a loud crash as he leaves.

“Oh fuck, did
he?” I ask McNab.

McNab nods. “Yeah,
he only caught the ‘good part.’”

I start to leave to go
after Eli and the bailiff stops me. “Miss Baynes, you can’t
leave just yet.”

Jason shakes his head.
I look at the door again, then Aiden. “I need to go after him.”

Jason is dialing Eli’s
number, but it goes straight to voicemail. “You can’t
leave right yet and neither can I. He’ll answer in a bit.”

I look around for Carl,
but he’s not here. “McNab, where the fuck is Carl?”

“I’m not
sure.” He looks around, realizing he’s not there. “Where
is
Carl?”

Eli

Jason
was so cryptic in his text and won’t pick up. I’m not
sure what’s happening, but I’m driving like a bat out of
hell at the prospect of seeing Shay. I love that woman with my entire
being. One day she’ll be my wife, maybe even today if I’m
reading the text right. “‘Shay’s being released,
come to the courthouse.’ What the hell is that supposed to
mean,” I say out loud to no one at all, hoping that maybe this
time I’ll be able to decipher it.

There are no reporters,
so I’m wondering if she’s really being released or not.
Either way, if I can just see her. It’s been killing me not
being able to go to the jail to see her. Yesterday when we broke the
news about Aiden I just wanted to pick her up and take her home.

“Good morning,
Mr. Walker.” The guard at the front door greets me.