Jump The Line (Toein' The Line Book 1) Read online

  “We’re not here to arrest you,”he says.

  “Alaina, what’s all this? What have you done?”

  Hearing Brick growl behind me, I turn. He’s standing in the hallway, waving his scalpel. “Brick, I—”

  He stares at Aidan. “Is this who called you from the bar?”

  “Nooo—not exactly.” Feeling Aidan’s and Officer Barbie’s gazes drilling into me, I cross my arms. Why is everyone acting like I’m a suspect? “Someone needs to tell me what’s going on here.”

  “I need to ask you some questions,”Aidan says. “About your friend.”

  “Oh? I thought you came here to sweat me, uh, to question me about—”

  I zip my lips. I’ve got to protect myself and Robin. If he and Officer Barbie are here about something else, like Stoke robbing Omar’s, then I’ve still got to tread carefully.

  Why’s he keep staring at me like that?

  I smooth my gypsy hair, but it climbs my shoulders like bold black honeysuckle. The gesture makes him stare harder. Recalling how he saw me bare breasted last night, I shiver. If I’d planned on seducing him to distract him, I don’t think I could’ve done a better job. He’s either entranced, or he’s a lech. Hot yes, but still a lech, if that gaze he keeps shooting me means what I think it does.

  “Your friend,”he says at last,“has met with . . . serious trouble.”

  “Stoke Farrel’s in trouble?” I almost laugh, but don’t. “What sort of trouble?”

  “Let’s find a place to talk,”he says. Ignoring my reference to Stoke, he glances down the hall toward the storage room. “There?”

  “Sure,”I smile, hoping he doesn’t mind my sleep-deprived look of exhaustion, the kohl and purple eye makeup left over from last night, my wild-ass gypsy hair. Compared to Officer Barbie, I’m a mess. But do I care? “I’m all yours,”I say, breathless, my heart still thumping from his embrace, although he let me go when Officer Barbie shot him a hot-eyed, disapproving glare. “Uh, what I mean is, I’m here until two, and then I gotta leave. . . .”

  I shut up. Does he really need to know I’m going looking for Robin after I’m done here?

  He’s shooting me these vibes, eating me up with those green eyes. Looks like my ruse to distract him’s working, but if not, then what the hell? Let him carry the ball. I let go of my earlier insecurity, and relax. He’s not here about Robin, and I like not having to work so hard. I slide him a long sideways glance, joy and lust vying for top spot in my belly. Who said I have to take him home to meet Berta? All I need is one night. Maybe sleeping with a cop isn’t all bad. If it was, my body wouldn’t be suffering such a scorching heat wave. Would it?

  “We need privacy,”he says, and turns toward the copy room.

  I follow him toward the cramped storage space, the“employee lounge.”

  Officer Barbie shoots me a look: I’ll get you, my pretty.

  Ignoring her, I enjoy the view of Detective Aidan Hawks’ retreating torso. Tight buns. Long, athletic hips and legs. Whoa! It’s all I can do to make myself remember he’s here to ask questions. I’ve no idea what’s come over me: a bad case of instant hots for a LEO I barely know at all. I feel so deliciously . . . trashy. “Like an alley cat casing a tuna-fish can in a city Dumpster,”Berta Colby would call my risky chemical attraction.

  “Mother,”I’d tell her,“I’ve learned all kinds of alley-cat behavior from you.”

  At the moment, I’m grateful for her genes, but I’m not half as savvy as my feline mom, not when it comes to navigating back—or blind alleys—and definitely not when it comes to lusting after LEOs.

  If I had the chance to get to know Detective Hawks the way my body’s begging to, how long would it take to learn the extent of my naïveté?

  Chapter 19

  Squeezing into the copy room behind Aidan, I find a stack of copy paper boxes an20d sit. He leans against the copier, so close I can feel the heat—from him not the copier—and gives me a spectacular front view of his body. That one night stand I was dreaming of seconds earlier is lookin’ good from where I’m sitting, but an edgy sense of impending doom evaporates the drool from my salivating brain. Something’s really wrong here. I can feel it.

  At least I’m relieved Robin hasn’t murdered anyone. I’m also hopeful Stoke’s going to prison indefinitely. “What’s going on?”I ask. “What’s my friend Stoke done?”

  Officer Barbie, Brick trudging along on her heels, pushes inside the copy room, joining us. Claiming the prized turf beside Aidan, she leans against the copy machine and shoots him a syrupy gaze. I admit I’m crappy when it comes to reading people, so I can’t tell if there’s anything’s going on between them, but I know one thing for sure: I’m the outsider in this ménage a trois. I’m the perp in this sweat down.

  What’s with these two?

  Gazing up from my perch on the copy paper boxes, and watching their coordinated exchange of glances, I feel like I’m watching the Blue Angels perform overhead. They’re a team alright, maybe the good-cop bad-cop crew. The fact pings my radar, bucking me up for whatever’s to come.

  “Look, I’m a college student, so I have to work,”I say. “What’s going on with my friend?”

  Brick coughs. He’s not waving his scalpel, not conducting the orchestra that plays continuously in his head. His lack of scalpel waving is a clue. I pick up on it. Uh-oh. Has the turd I’ve been expecting arrived? Is it being served up by these two cops?

  I quickly revisit my attraction to Aidan. What have I been thinking? I’ve let my resistance slip every time my hormones wobbled. Maybe sleeping with a cop’s not bad, seriously, but pressed tight in this room with Detective Aidan Hawks and freakin’ knowing, just knowingI’m about to take his gut kick, makes me wish for once I’d obeyed Berta Colby’s rule: no LEOs.

  I can’t take it any more, the not knowing. “Look, what do you want?”

  “I’m really sorry, Alaina,”he says,“but—”

  I tense. Here it comes, the big old gut kick.

  “Your friend’s dead.”

  “Stoke is . . . dead?”I ask, sounding not half as sad as I’m wishing I did.

  “No, not Stoke. I’m sorry, but it’s your friend, Angie Miller.”

  “Angie?” I propel my way up off the copy paper box and stand, but the room starts spinning. “Noooo!”I yell, hearing the angst in my voice. “You’re lying. You’re lying. You both came here to trick me. You’re—”

  I catch my breath. I don’t ordinarily lose my cool this way. “What . . . what happened? How?”I ask, fighting the pain swelling deep within me. How can this be? How can Angie be dead?

  “How’d she die?”I ask. Thinking of her new boyfriend, a jerk called“Suds,”who drinks like a fish and drives like a maniac, I fear the worst. She’s been killed in a car accident.

  “It wasn’t pretty,”Aidan says, sizing me up, probably wondering how much of the truth I can take. “She was murdered. Tortured while she was alive,”he continues, explaining about Angie’s teeth being cut out,“and then brutalized after she was dead. So you can see why I need your help.”

  Fighting numbness, I listen to him tell me the details, speaking kindly, considering the brutality of Angie’s murder.

  When another attack of dizziness makes my knees buckle, Aidan puts his arms around me and holds me up. I know he’s just trying to help me focus on the work he’s come to do, but I’m grateful for his support.

  “You going to be okay?”he asks. “Would you like more time before we—?”

  I force myself to stand. Angie’s dead, murdered. I need to keep my wits. “No, I’m . . . fine. What can I do to help?”

  Nudging Officer Barbie aside, he lays a photo across the copier lid. “Alaina, please look carefully at the wound patterns. Do they mean anything to you?”

  Grateful for Aidan’s arms still around me, I step close to the copier for a better look.

  When I was a little girl and my mom fought with her boyfriends, I’d steel myself against my fright by saying a nur
sery rhyme. I say it now, staring at photos of my friend’s mangled body, and feel my trembling lips moving frantically.

  Hickory, dickory, dock, the mouse ran up the clock. Clock stuck one, mouse ran down.

  Wham!

  I open my eyes. My next glance at Ang’s shoulder delivers another gut kick.

  “Her wounds are like Meera’s!”I say, stunned, recalling the work Brick and I did with Meera’s photos.

  “Oh, my God!”

  Pulling from Aidan’s embrace, I make a hard right out the copy room door and then fly down the hall to the employee bathroom. Running down the hallway, I imagine Officer Barbie’s snarky remark when I’d left the copy room, not voiced but lingering between us in her gaze when I’d shoved past her.

  Who’s the amateur now?

  * * *

  I barely made it to the bathroom in time. Staring into the ornate gold mirror above the sink, I run cold water and scrub my face free of two days’ worth of garish stage makeup. Nothing’s left in my tummy, no Twizzler from my breakfast Stoke gave me, not even water. I’ve dry heaved everything into the commode. I don’t recognize myself. The girl staring back in the mirror’s a freakin’ zombie. She’s a completely dead freakin’ zombie, and I don’t know her.

  “Oh, shit, Alaina,”I tell the wet angry face. “What in hell was that you just saw in that photo? What in hell was that?”

  Picturing the bite marks on Ang’s shoulder, I kick the trash can and then punch the wall.

  “That’s not her. No!”

  I start sobbing again, fresh tears flooding my cheeks. To think, I’d been pissed she didn’t show up to help me make my video for my Rockettes’ jump-the-line competition. I’d never been serious about making that video. It was just a silly dream of mine. What’s it mean now?

  “She was dead, Alaina—you bitch! She was freakin’ dead, and you were being selfish.”

  Ang, I’m sorry.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! God, Ang, I’m so freakin’ sorry.”

  Choking on my sobs, I suck cold water from the faucet, belch, suck some more.

  Then, slowly, I straighten. Understanding dawns with cruel irony. Now I know why he’s here. Detective Hawks didn’t come to arrest me. Or Robin. Or Stoke. He’s here to add Ang’s photos to Brick’s collection. Soon, Brick’s rubbery gunk will fill Ang’s bite wounds. I imagine Ang, her dancer’s supple body denied life by a murderer and laying prone on a slab in a morgue freezer. Brick will make his awful impressions and molds. They’ll rest on display beside Meera’s, until whoever killed both Meera and Ang is caught and their killer’s bite can be matched with Brick’s impressions.

  I shiver. Brick’s left the air-conditioning running all night. It’s colder than a morgue in this bathroom. And then it hits me. Will Brick ask me to help examine Angie’s bite marks? Her impressions? I never imagined, looking over Meera’s bite wounds, that this investigation would turn so personal.

  The thought disgusts me. Could I do it? Look at Ang’s body the way I looked at Meera’s and objectively perform the forensic analysis required? Goosebumps pop out on my neck. I need it, the chill. It clears my head. “Yeah, sure, I can do it,”I tell the scowling face in the mirror. “Hell yes, I can.”

  Who did this to my friend? Who fucking did this to my friend?

  Detective Hawks thinks I know something, maybe something that will tell him who killed Ang. That’s why he showed me those pictures. I think back to everyone Angie and I are friends with, but the only person who comes to mind is me. And Stoke. And—

  Robin.

  I stop. I’m not going to allow myself to think what I’m thinking.

  I turn my focus on Ang’s killer, an unknown faceless freak. It’s not my brother, not Robin.

  “Bastard,”my mom would say of Ang’s killer. “He’s some sumbitch, ain’t he,‘Lainey? Out there killing women, biting the shit out of‘em‘til they die.”

  “Sumbitch’s too nice a word,”I tell the face in the mirror, my mother’s face, only several years younger. No lines. No wrinkles. No hagged-out expression from cigarettes and too many drugs and a lifetime of disappointment. “The man who bit Meera and Ang to death is a cold-blooded killer, and I want a piece of him,”I say. “I want a piece of him.”

  Gulping cold air, I toss my paper towel into the garbage can I smashed earlier by kicking it and take a last look at my face. Mine, I’m saying, Alaina Colby’s.

  College student’s.

  Exotic dancer’s.

  Office manager’s at Verbote Dental.

  Friend’s.

  I want to add another: daughter. But I can’t.

  “Oh, God.” A sob jerks through me, and I almost lose it again when my brain stops on the term—friend—but I hold myself together. Although I’m gazing at my face, it’s Ang’s that keeps staring back.

  Help me.

  The anguish I imagine in Angie’s face fires a spark in my gut, hollowed from heaving and crying the last half hour. It flares, igniting my soul’s dry tinder. I stand like an addict in some far away place, feeling the blue white burn of anger jack my system back to the reality I must walk from this room and face.

  “I will, Ang,”I promise. “I’ll find that sumbitch and pay him back.”

  This is the first time I’ve ever enjoyed being who I am, the first time I’m glad I carry my Goshen Colby crime gang genes. Like Meera’s and Ang’s killer, I can also kill, if my Colby blood’s any indicator. I want to kill. I taste the tang of blood on my tongue and see the bitter hate for her murderer burning in my eyes. I will kill whoever did this to my friend.

  “Get your butt back in that copy room and talk to that LEO,”I say, desire for revenge sucking oxygen from my anguish and tightening my anger to a cold compressed rage.

  “Yeah, I’ll do it,”I say, jacking my forearm up the same way Berta Colby does, giving the world the proverbial fuckoff gesture. Berta would be proud. I simply feel raw.

  My cell phone rings.

  It’s Angie!

  For a moment, I lose track of reality and forget my friend is dead. I dig my cell phone from my hoodie pocket. “See you at work tonight,”she’ll say the second I answer. She’ll talk to me with her bubbly voice that’s always filled with laughter. I’ll hear my friend and I’ll know this is all a bad dream. Then everything will be okay. I won’t have to run home and lock myself in the bathroom and cut until I’m done. Until I feel nothing.

  Chapter 20

  Brightly hopeful, but still feeling like a selfish spoiled child wanting something I know I can’t have, I answer my cell phone.

  “Angie?” I sound frightened, scared. Maybe this is all a bad dream. I’ll awaken soon.

  “No, it’s me.”

  Clutching my chest, feeling like I can somehow squeeze out the pain I’m feeling over Ang’s murder, I lean against the bathroom wall, grateful at last for the cushy Hyde Park wallpaper, for my brother’s voice. “Robin?”

  “What’s wrong?”he asks. “Are you crying?”

  “No,”I say, hating to lie but not wanting to tell him yet what’s happened to Ang. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “I’m twenty, not ten years old,”he says. “No need to worry about me.”

  It’s bad timing, or maybe I’m ready to unload on someone—anyone. “Robin, are you freakin’ kidding me! I’m not the meth head, remember? You are, and I’ve been caring for you since the day you were born. Where areyou?”

  I’ve hurt him. My attack is unfair, but I’m hurting, too. Still, I can’t let my pain interfere with my duty. Rob’s my responsibility and has been since the day he was born, and definitely since the day I graduated high school. I couldn’t leave him behind in that Goshen hellhole with Berta, so I took him with me when I left. I keep telling myself it’s not my fault he’s gotten into meth, but taking a full class load and working two jobs, I’ve had zero time to spend with him. A little voice keeps whispering: it is your fault. It is.

  Silence. Rob’s not always
cooperative with my big sister act.

  Then he does what I hate most. With his crappy timing, my brother picks now to start the inevitable build that will lead to full blown anger and a shouting match between us if I’m not careful.

  “If we’re talking about caring for each other, then you need to explain what you’ve been doing with that weird fuck, Stoke Farrel. I heard he crashed at our place last night,‘Laney. What’s up with that?”

  I take a deep breath, squeeze back tears. I should’ve seen this coming. Robin’s angry and itching for a fight. It’s a sure sign he’s using again. “Yeah, he did,”I say, wondering how he found out about Stoke. But Robin and I never lie to each other, although I just held back info on Ang’s murder, so I just tell him. “He invited himself to spend the night. I couldn’t get rid of him, Rob. I swear he’s just a friend. He spent the night on the couch.”

  More of that raucous silence that’s cropped up between us lately, and then,“Keep that Frankenstein midget bastard out of our apartment until I get back, or I’ll stomp his face into the dirt.”

  Robin knows how to push all my hot buttons. “He’s my friend, Rob, and you don’t get to tell me who to have for friends.”

  “I’ll kill him. I swear if he touches you, I’ll kill him.”

  I work to ignore the venom, the threat, in Rob’s voice. It will give him satisfaction if I tell him I’m scared for him. When he gets like this, he will kill someone. He goes into these angry builds that always lead to violence. First he locks onto someone, convinces himself they’re after him, and then he explodes on them. It’s my big fear. That, and my concern he’ll go to prison for murder.

  “Please tell me where you are, Rob,”I beg, resigned. I can fight a lot of things, but I’ve learned from Berta Colby: blood will tell. Robin’s a freakin’ Goshen Colby, so what do I expect, if not a badass attitude and tons of grief from him?

  “Rob, I—I don’t have the heart for this right now. Angie’s been—”