Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption (5 page)

“Who is what?” I turn to see where she’s pointing.

“Who is
that?
” She takes me by the arm and pushes me in the direction she’s talking about and points more directly this time. Just as the someone pulls themselves behind a tree, I catch a glimpse of them. I can’t say I get a
good
look at the person, they’ve got a hoodie pulled over their face, but I know who it is.

“Shhhhhit.”

I’m calling my therapist out on the whole breathing bullshit next time I see her because it is
definitely
not working right now.

“Do you know that person?” Green presses.

“Unfortunately,” I tell her. Without thinking, I tug her along by the wrist until we’re around the corner where my one-time blind date turned stalker can’t see us.

Green, of course, slows me down by walking forward but looking backward.

“Who is he?”

“She,” I correct.

“What?”

“It’s a
she,
Green. He’s a she
.”

We stop and I shove Green against the cold concrete, then lean across her to peek around the corner.

“Well then, who is
she
?” she whispers as I check to see if my friendly neighborhood stalker is still lurking. Not that I can concentrate very well with Green breathing against my neck like that.

It’s not that big a deal, really. The stalker, that is.

Lilah Gooding is harmless, if I’m being honest. However, because I happened to have found her sleeping in my car while she waited for me to get off work a couple times, combined with the fact that she nearly killed herself attempting to climb into my apartment through the cracked window Frodo uses to come and go, she was awarded a special document from certain officials in Redemption warning her to keep herself more than a hundred feet away from me at all times.

She’s pretty good at staying within the law, by the way.

“An old acquaintance.” I’m not about to go into the gory details of a relationship that never happened with a reporter who’s most likely itching to give the public all the juicy, inaccurate details of said non-relationship.

“Why is she following you?” Green whisper-yells this time.

She’s kinda cute when she’s going all undercover.

No, Stiles, she’s not.

I really need to stop finding this woman even remotely attractive.

When I’m confident Lilah is no longer spying on me, I relax a little. But Green’s neck is still stretched out as far as it’ll go as she tries to catch a glimpse of Lilah.

“She’s gone,” I tell her, and I dare say, the reporter in Green looks disappointed.

“You sure get around,” she jibes, avoiding eye contact with me.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I’m closer than I would have expected to be to her. With the amount of tension building between the two of us, she might have elaborated had we not been so rudely fucking interrupted by some douchebag with bad taste in casual attire and terrible social skills.

I’m suddenly forced aside and out of the way before I can tell him to suck a bag of dicks for interrupting a very important conversation. Seriously, who walks up to a person and kisses them like that? But more importantly, why in God’s name is he kissing
Green
?

He’s on her hard, too. Like he wants to swallow her whole and it’s fucking gross.

“Helloooooo.” I wave a hand and they break apart.

Green is breathless. If I could roll my eyes
any
more than I am, I might see out the back of my head, for Christ’s sake.

“Hi, babe.” Mystery guy says to her. My resting dick face says it all. Of
course
he talks like a guy who thinks he’s much better looking than he actually is.

You know what the fuck I’m talking about.

And okay, it’s not so much a resting dick face as much of an all the time dick face. But I digress.

“Hi.” Green’s polite about his idiotic attempt to mark his territory. Not
un-
happy to see him, exactly, but not ecstatic he just assaulted her fucking face, either.

Ass.

Funny, I pegged her for more of the back-against-a-wall sort of woman. This guy looks like he’d much prefer cowgirl style so he can watch her tits bounce.

Personally, I think I’d like to feel them up close and personal like. Against me. With the heat and the passion and the want and the…

What the fuck am I even thinking?

All beside the goddamn point.

She’s forgotten I’m even standing here until I clear my throat and eyeball the douchebag.

“Oh.” She laughs. “Stiles. This is─”

“Don’t care.” When I’m sure he gets my meaning, I turn my attention back to Green. “You were saying?”

It takes her a minute to figure out what I’m getting at, then she remembers, but apparently doesn’t want to get into to it with the boy thing around. So she slips me a sinister, quirky grin and ropes her hand through douchebag’s arm.

“Some other time, Stiles. We’ve gotta go.” She turns and pulls him along, but his eyes stay on me like Peanut Butter on toast, trying to figure out who in the hell I am exactly.

Fuck you. That’s who I am, asshole.

As they scuttle off together, into the sun, I have to admit, I’m slightly impressed with the way Green ended it just now ’cause, you know, heels.

More than that, though, I’m kinda baffled.

Green has a boyfriend? Who knew?

Then again, maybe it’s not a boyfriend. Maybe it’s just a guy she fucks every once in a while to relieve the tension of the job. Though, she doesn’t strike me as the type for flings.

Maybe a long term Dom/sub relationship.

She’s definitely the Dom.

I’m picturing a more intense version of Trinity from
The Matrix
when a shiver flies up my spine.

I don’t wanna think about why that bothers me, so I shake off the twisted fuckery inside my head and wait a minute before leaving. Lilah may be hiding somewhere, waiting to jump me at her earliest convenience. Despite the fact that I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’d never really do anything that might get her or myself killed, on purpose, I like to remind myself that those are just about everyone’s
famous last words
.

X X X

Back in the safety of my car, I lock the doors and check my messages. It shouldn’t surprise me that the first one is from my mom, considering I never responded to her text last night.

Dammit.

I can always blame my inconsideration on the job I was dealing with at the time and how late I got in, but it won’t matter. You never leave your mom hanging. Ever.

“Jackson, dear, it’s your mother calling.”

Her messages pretty much start out the same way every time. How, having lived in Redemption her whole life, she manages to sound like a true Southerner, is beyond me.

“I just wanted to remind you that your father’s birthday is this weekend.”

And here I thought my day could only get better.

Air leaves me in a defeated sigh.

“Shit.”

I completely forgot. Not that it matters; I won’t be buying him a present or anything. My dad and I, well, let’s just say, he’s kind of an ass. Mostly because he’s what a lot of people would call a functioning alcoholic.

I wouldn’t say he’s drunk
every
day. Only when he’s got responsibilities that are weighing him down, or when the holidays roll around, or when I’m near him, or when he’s awake.

So, yeah, I guess every day.

He’s not just any old drunk, though. He’s a mean drunk.

He’s also a retired cop, which is why Nick is a cop, and why I was supposed to be a cop.

Dad was always kind of a hardass, but back in the day, he was a pretty decent guy. He earned a name for himself in Redemption by putting away almost fifty-five percent of the street thugs all on his own. He was awarded the Redemption Medal of Honor a couple times. Had his very own task force. Even landed himself in the company of the mayor on more than one occasion.

That was before his descent into what I like to refer to as being a complete dicktwat. Not that I wasn’t partially to blame for that, but still.

I’ve spent a lot of time since moving out of my parents’ place avoiding him. Mom makes that difficult at times.

Typically, I’m a pro at making sure I have plans that are out of town for this very occasion. This year, my mind has been preoccupied.

“We’re having a dinner on Saturday,” she says, then she hesitates. And, there it is, my friends. Even via voice mail, she knows how to dish out the guilt trips with long pauses.

Don’t get me wrong. My mother is a saint. I love her to death. But damn, she can lay it on thick.

Then she adds the humdinger. The double whammy. The side-swiper, if you will.

“Nick is driving over. He said he could pick you up.”

Fuuuuuuuuuuck me.

I shake my head and smile, in awe of the way she knows exactly how to manipulate me, even in adulthood.

I check my calendar. I have a few days to come up with an excuse. One, I’m positive
won’t
be working at this point, is leaving town. She knows I’m here. If I go now, it’ll be obvious.

“So, I’ll see you then, honey,” she says with that flippant, motherly,
I won’t bother waiting for you to call back to confirm because you know better than to cross me
tone.

She ends the message, and I let my head fall back against the headrest.

At least I don’t have to bring my own booze.

GUTTERAL INSTINCTS ARE A BITCH

THERE ARE, at any given time, two types of bullshit that tend to go down in my world. The first kind can be extinguished with a quick trip to the local bar. That’s, generally speaking, bullshit of the family kind. Then there’s the type that takes a little more energy to snuff out.

Client bullshit.

One of my cases gets stolen by some half-assed newbie P.I. who thinks he’s slick. Maybe a payment I’m due gets “lost in the mail.” Or my favorite: I get one hell of a screwed-up case that not even the Redemption P.D. wants to handle.

That’s when I go to my safe place.

My Zen.

My
office
.

The fourteen-by-fourteen foot space, located on the outskirts of downtown Redemption, is slightly overpriced, sure, but it’s where my mind works best.

There’s nothing special about the place other than the fact that it’s far, far away from where my family lives. Therefore, they don’t tend to swing by unannounced. Much.

It’s still got white walls because I don’t know how to pick a color to save my fucking life. The world’s single worst coffee maker ever created completes the decor, along with your basic couch that sits across from my desk, a bathroom for obvious reasons, and, most importantly, a twenty-inch Sony to keep up with the news and maybe watch a little something called “none of your fucking business.” I consider the bulletproof windows and soundproofing I had installed to be bonus features.

Your standard, run of the mill, private eye office.

Okay, substandard.
Semantics.

How much room do you need to fax contracts, take phone calls, and collect payments, anyway? Sure, there’s the occasional face-to-face meeting with certain clientele, but honestly, most of the cases I take these days can be squared away via text, email, or Facebook.

Actually, scratch that last thing; I quit social media when catfishing and multiple personalities became the everyday norm.

I’ve got enough problems keeping track of who’s who in the real world; I don’t need to add virtual psychos to my list of issues. Besides, one less place for
the man
to keep his watchful eye on yours truly; ya know what I mean?

Once I’m inside, I set the remains of my burger and fries down onto the desk, turn on the television, and head for the stack of bills I’ve been avoiding for about a week. I pull out the twelve thousand I still have tucked away in my jacket and the envelope that’s with it and toss them onto my desk. As I rummage through the top drawer to find a deposit slip, I grab the remote.

Ah. I knew I had one somewhere.

I start to fill the slip out, then my fucking pen runs out of ink.
Story of my life, people.

Unable to find another working goddamn writing utensil, I flip channels on the TV until I find the news.

It’s not odd to me so much when Donnie Leary’s face pops up on the screen. I do find it off-putting that the old photo of him is accompanied by the solemn expression of a reporter saying something I can’t hear.

What’d you do now, kid?
Frustration kicks in because not only did he almost have me convinced he was one of the good guys, but now I might have to go track his ass down again.

Despite the fact that I’m not in the mood for this shit, I turn up the volume to see what’s going on.

“The twenty-one-year-old gang member was wanted for questioning by the Redemption police department in connection to a previously unsolved murder case. A tristate manhunt has been underway for several weeks. That manhunt ended early this morning when Mr. Leary’s body was found in a suburb of the city.”

“What the . . .” I go a little lightheaded, not gonna lie, as I watch the screen flip to the scene of the crime. Your typical police ranks are standing around, talking to random business owners. Some medics are lingering to the left, a few photographers to the right. On the ground behind them all, there’s a white sheet draped over a heap of something.

This isn’t computing. I dropped his very alive and kicking body off at the 1st Precinct no less than twelve hours ago.

A sourness fills me up as I sit and listen to the reporter go on and on about how Donnie was found shot to death, execution style, at approximately four A.M. and how the police won’t confirm or deny it was gang related. She continues by stating there’s speculation that drugs were found at the scene along with a twenty-two revolver believed to belong to the victim.

“Authorities believe that known gang leader, Thomas Flint, may have been behind the shooting. No arrests have been made, as of yet.”

Flint’s name sends a chill through every inch of me. And not the good kind, either. He’s not exactly the type of person you wanna cross. Why someone like Donnie, who seemed fairly up and up—for the most part anyway—would get involved with that guy is beyond me.

Okay, let’s do the math.

I dropped the kid off at about one A.M.

Even if—
and that’s a huge-ass if—
he was awarded bail in night court—
so very not likely, considering this was a murder case he was associated with—
it’s virtually impossible that he was able to make said bail until business hours. I know this because Tricky Ricky, who’s pretty much the only bail bondsman around, doesn’t answer his fucking phone after midnight, no matter who you are. Which means there’s no way in hell Donnie escaped four experienced officers who seemed to be jacked up about getting him tagged and titled before they went home for the night. Not to mention the fact that together they outweighed the kid by about seven hundred pounds.

Of course, there are other ways to escape a group of overweight cops besides being able to take them down. Donnie’s pretty smart. Maybe he found a way. However, on top of all that bullshit, a gun? Not one kid at that drag race pulled one on me. If Donnie had it, why didn’t he use it?

Then there’s the drugs.

I’m just gonna leave that one alone for now. It’s too questionable. Could he have had it on him at the time I caught up to him? Possible, maybe. But probable? I don’t know.

If I’d stolen a shit-load of goods from Thomas Flint: a) I wouldn’t have it on me for Christ’s sake; and b) I sure as hell wouldn’t be hanging around for a drag race. I’d be getting outta Dodge before anyone could ask me the price.

The suck-ass angle of the news camera doesn’t give me a very good perspective for seeing whether or not there are any cops I recognize from last night at the scene.

Doesn’t matter.

What’s more important than shitty camera angles is, can this BS come back and bite me in the ass?

In other words, did I cross the ”T”s and dot the ”I”s?

Think, Stiles.

Think, think, think.

The envelope Hank Riley handed to me last night catches my attention. I pick it up and open it for the first time since I got it.

“Mother. Fucker.”

I turn the blank piece of paper over. Then over again. And again, and again, until I finally crumple that shit up and toss it in the trash can.

“Asshole!”

Why?

Because they never wanted him to make it into holding, dumbass.

Whatever I signed ─whatever proof I may or may not have needed to show that kid was at Redemption PD last night─ is gone by now. And I’m the fucking idiot who let it happen.

On the other hand, maybe I should be
glad
I didn’t sign that paperwork since it doesn’t link me to this kid.
For now.
Which raises another question. Are they gonna want their money back?

Maybe it’s hush money.

Liability begins to weigh heavy inside my gut, and I do my best to shake it off, but the scene playing out on the television is tugging away at me.

You don’t wanna do this.

It’s not exactly smart to get involved in things I have no business sticking my nose into. This isn’t my problem. Quite frankly, I don’t
want
it to be my problem if Hank Riley and squad went through this much trouble to erase him.

Something bothers the shit out of me, though.

When I drop a perp off, I expect them to stay there and not end up face down in a puddle of muck with no heartbeat three hours later.

“Dammit.”

And no, it has nothing to do with the fact that maybe I liked the kid.

Nothing at all. This shit’s business.

The money I scored last night and the envelope from Redemption’s finest sit on my desk.

You know that old saying about curiosity killing the cat? Well, if I was a cat, I’d be dead right about now. To say curiosity is one of my more dominant personality traits is an under-fucking-statement.

It only takes me another minute or two to think things through. I push the money into my desk’s top drawer, turn off the TV, and lock up. Zen time is over.

X X X

After I park the Chevelle about a block away, I scope out the crime scene where Donnie Leary was found dead. Not too many official types are still hanging out, and the body’s gone now.

It seems neat. The chalk outline is smack dab in the middle of the alleyway. This strikes me as odd because why wouldn’t whoever shot this kid try to hide the body? Unless they wanted it to be found.

Clue number one. Thomas Flint likes to fly under the radar. It’s easier for him that way. Therefore, when he makes someone disappear, they aren’t found in an alleyway behind some random fast food joint. They generally aren’t found at all.

The
Do Not Cross
tape I encounter is slightly amusing. There isn’t a yellow tape out there that’s ever deterred me from getting the information I need.

Officers of the law? That’s a different story.

There are a few strays who apparently decided to hang around. They’re in a tight-knit circle off to the side of the area whispering among themselves. I recognize a couple.

Hank Riley is one, of course. Jim Galley is another. Both were there last night when I dropped Donnie off. Not that it’s weird or anything.

Note the sarcasm.

It’s time to skip over the detective work that takes forever and a fucking day to do and go with plan B.

I stride on up to the circle and pretend I’m part of the group.

“Stiles. What are you doing here?” Hank spots me, and his face turns about as red as a fifty-dollar hooker’s heels. Fine by me. I just so happen to be excellent at bluffing my way through shit.

“Hey, fellas.”

The rest of them turn and glower at me, except Jim Galley, who leaves the group to make a call. I, for one, have always scoffed in the face of intimidation.

“Heard a friend of mine was shot and killed this morning. Thought I’d check it out.”

This comment is two-fold. I’m letting them know that I know Donnie’s dead. I’m also flipping them the bird without actually flipping them the fucking bird.

Genius, right?

“Not sure what you’re talking about, Stiles.” Hank isn’t being flippant or pompous. He’s altogether emotionless, which wigs me out a little.

“The perp I dropped off last night. Don’t be coy, Hank.”

They all have blank looks on their faces and avoid giving me their full attention, but I’m not a fucking idiot, despite popular opinion. When no one offers up the obvious, I take it upon myself to stir the pot some more.

“Anyone wanna explain how Donnie Leary went from your capable hands to face down in the gutter this morning?”

My expression is rock solid, but inside, I want to break some bones.

There’s an exchanged look or two. A few hushed words between a couple of them. The circle of secrecy is eventually broken, though, when Hank decides to make an attempt at explaining the situation.

He starts with a shrug. “Kid left the precinct before we could book him.”

“Officially,” Jim adds, ending his call and joining us again.

“Officially, huh?” That must be cop talk for
we lost him.