10. Char
CHAR
“Sorry, you said what?” Abbie asked.
I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “You heard me right. We watched on those cameras as she plugged Murphy with bullets.”
“Do you have footage of that?”
I grinned. “Do skeletons make noise fucking on a tin roof?”
She snorted before leaning back and placing her pen down. “All right, the wrist needs a rest.”
I leaned up as well and crossed my legs at my ankles. “Told you it was a lot. And I’m not even done yet.”
While my lawyer rubbed at her temples, I looked up at the clock in the room.
It was well past lunchtime. Hell, most people ate an early dinner by that point.
Three in the afternoon. It was three in the motherfucking afternoon, and I hadn’t slept a wink.
I hadn’t had a decent meal in I didn’t know how long. And there was still no end in sight.
I was still trapped in that dank, disgusting police precinct.
“Knock, knock,” Sheriff Nielson said.
The second that door swung open, the most heavenly scents filled the room. Smells of barbecue and hushpuppies. A cheeseburger with French fries. I even smelled the soda, crisp and decadent as the little bubbles popped after Nielson sat the drink down in front of me.
“Which one would you like?” Abbie asked. “I’m personally fond of barbecue, but I can take either.”
I shrugged mindlessly. “I’m fine either way.”
“There you are,” Nielson said, “two dinners for two lovely ladies. Is there anything else I can get you two?”
“Char?” Abbie asked.
I stared off at the wall over her shoulder. There was too much on my mind. Even as my stomach growled out for the entire room to hear, I couldn’t bring myself to pick up a French fry.
I wondered if the guys were able to eat.
Deacon will be pissed that you didn’t eat.
Great, even the voice in my head turned against me.
“Char?” Sheriff Nielson asked.
But Abbie waved her hand. “Just give her some time. We’ve been talking for the better part of three hours. She needs a moment to rest.”
“Well,” Nielson said as he backtracked, “if you need anything, I’m in my office until the end of the day.”
“Thank you, Sheriff,” she said.
I didn’t say anything, though. I didn’t want to. All I wanted was to get back to my guys. Get back to my bed.
Get back to my fucking life.
And the second the door latched closed behind him…
“Ready to keep going?” I asked.
Abbie paused her fork halfway to her mouth. “We can take a break. I know we’ve been talking for a while.”
I shook my head, though. “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can go home.”
She quickly took a few bites of her food and chased it down with her drink. Then she picked up her pen, clearing her throat, and uncrossed her legs.
“All right, so you have footage of when she shot Captain Ryan Murphy. What happened next?” she asked.
I went through everything. I told her things that I honestly wasn’t sure I was supposed to tell her.
I told her about how the guys knew Murphy, and that they called him Doc.
I told her about the bar, and how they purchased it out from beneath Miss Lilly, and that’s how I got wrapped up into things in the first place.
I told her about Dr. Agemon. I told her about the memorial shoot-off we did for Bait.
Hell, I even told her about sleeping with the guys!
If she was in, she was in all the way. None of this halfsies shit.
And when we were finally done, the clock struck five in the afternoon and my lawyer sighed.
“My God,” she said as she dug the heels of her hands into her eyes.
I scoffed. “Yeah, my sentiments exactly.”
Then she cleared her throat and flipped to a blank page in her notes. “Okay, what can you prove?”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
She held up her notebook and let the dozens of pages she scribbled notes on dangle in front of me. “Out of all this, what can you prove? I need a list.”
I nodded slowly. “We can prove she killed Murphy, we have footage of that. I think we have evidence that can help point Marcie toward Bait’s killing?—”
She shook her head. “Not what we think we can prove. I need to know what we can prove right this second.”
“All right,” I said before I licked my lips, “outside of killing Murphy, I can also prove that Marcie has a history of taking things way too personally.”
“Especially with you,” she murmured.
“Bingo.”
“I’ve also got those conversations I told you about that I had with her. I can testify to those personally in court.”
She grinned up at me. “I’m sure you can.”
I didn’t know what the hell that meant, but I didn’t care.
I tried reading her face as she continuously wrote things down, muttering and murmuring to herself.
But she didn’t give me much to go on. Outside of that professional smile that I was sure she worked on by herself in her bathroom mirror, there wasn’t much else on her face.
Nothing rushing behind her eyes. Nothing tensing up her body.
She was the definition of prim, proper, and professional.
I didn’t like that I couldn’t get a read on her.
“You know, you really should eat,” Abbie said as she continued jotting down notes.
I shook my head as I watched her. “Not hungry.”
“Well, not eating will help your insanity plea, that’s for sure,” she said flippantly.
My eyes widened at her statement. “What did you say?”
She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
She peeked up from her notebook. “I actually think it’s a sound plan, so keep with it. It’s a great last-ditch kind of thing.”
I had to admit, the grin that worked its way across my face made me thankful that my back was to the interrogation room door and not the other way around.
I really liked this Abbie woman, and I prayed with all my might that she wasn’t going to screw me over.
It still gnawed at the back of my mind. I wanted to know what Marcie said to her.
I wanted to know what they talked about.
But I had to trust myself.
My gut told me to hire the woman, and I had to trust that my gut had mine and the guys’ best interests at heart.
“Okay,” Abbie said as she flipped to another blank page, “now, for the real story.”
That got my attention. “What?”
She pointed down to her notebook. “You’ve given me what Marcie’s trying to pin on you, you’ve given me what you can prove, and you’ve essentially given me your backstory. Now, I need the whole story.”
I shook my head. “But you know everything. That’s why we’ve sat here for the better part of five hours talking this out.”
She leaned forward. “You’ve given me facts, statements, and recalls, yes. But now I need to know the extent of your relationship with the guys. I need your whole story.”
I shook my head again, though. “None of that is important. Not to what’s happening right now.”
She smirked. “In that deep, huh?”
My face fell and I gritted my teeth together. “Those men are innocent of what this woman is trying to pin on them. What she’s trying to do to them is abhorrent. She’s killed innocent people that had nothing to?—”
Abbie reached across the table and placed her hand on my forearm. But I yanked away from her. I yanked away and sat up, ready to throw up my guard at a moment’s notice.
“Miss Char,” Abbie said softly.
“No,” I said flatly.
She leaned back in her chair. “I’m here to help you. Honest to God, I am. I’ve sat here with you, listening to you talk for the better part of five hours, just like you said. But I can’t help without all of the information at my disposal.”
“Which is what I gave you,” I said curtly.
She shook her head. “No, you haven’t. You’re protecting them, and I get that, but I’m here protecting them, too. Just because I’m interfacing with you doesn’t mean I don’t have their best interests in mind.”
“But do you have their best interests at heart?”
I bit down onto my tongue the second I spat the question out. But it was too late.
“Well then,” my lawyer said as she leaned back toward her notebook, “why don’t I tell you what I’m thinking, and then maybe you’ll feel more comfortable talking about how you got tangled up in this mess with them?”
“Like I told you, they bought out the bar and I snooped around trying to figure out why.”
“So you could get the bar back for the woman that replaced your mother in your life. I know.”
“Right, so you—wait, what?”
Abbie blinked. “Just humor me for a bit longer, Miss Char, okay?”
I narrowed my eyes to slits, but what choice did I have? “I’ll bite, but I don’t know if I’ll talk.”
She nodded. “That’s fine, too. Ready?”
I nodded, but I didn’t say anything, just to prove my point.
“Perfect,” she said as she set her pen down, “I think that the insanity plea you’ve built in the background is a good last-ditch effort in court, like I said earlier.
But I don’t think it’s the main route to take.
I think you want to expose Marcie, and I think she should be exposed, because if what you’re saying is true?—”
“It is.”
Her smile grew triumphant, and I had to look away to keep from smiling with her.
I really liked this woman.
“I really am here to help,” Abbie urged, “but I haven’t seen any of this evidence you say that you have. So for now, everything is a theory to me. Once I see things, though? It won’t be. So don’t get caught up in words right now. Just listen to the overall message.”
I cleared my throat and sighed. “Fine, okay. Yeah. Go ahead, I can do that.”
“Lovely,” Abbie said as she took a few more bites of her food.
I stared at the wall and waited for her to dab her mouth off before her voice caught my attention again.
“If what you’re saying is true, Miss Char, then people will have to take a look at all of Special Agent Dickerson’s cases.
For all we know, she’s put innocent men in prison for her own personal vendettas.
That alone deserves a second look at things.
But the only way we’re going to get that insanity plea is if we can prove your insanity. ”
I tilted my head. “You want to go ahead and be able to prove it, just in case.”
She nodded. “And in this particular scenario, I think it’s best that we go with Stockholm Syndrome.”
I wasn’t familiar with the term. “What does that mean?”
“Simply put, it means that, over time, you’ve developed positive feelings toward your captors or abusers.”
“Toward… Marcie? But—but I haven’t—I mean, her and I have only had those conversa?—”
Then it clicked.
“No,” I said.
“Miss Char, before you?—”
I resisted the urge to shoot to my feet in case someone was watching. “I said no.”
“Like I said, the insanity plea is a last-ditch effort. You’ve been doing very good with?—”
I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “I’d never throw my men under the bus like that. Not even in court. Not even to save my own ass. How dare you even think?—”
“Your men?” Abbie asked with a sly smile.
I sighed heavily as I leaned against the back of my chair.
“Stop fighting me,” Abbie said as she tapped her pen on top of the table, “because it won’t do you any good. These little parlor tricks to get you talking? That’s nothing compared to what you’ll face in court.”
“I know what I’ll face in court,” I hissed.
“No you don’t.”
That got my attention. “What?”
Abbie tilted her head and sighed. “When you were last in a courtroom, you were, what? Nine? Ten? Somewhere around there?”
“Yeah?”
“There are certain unwritten rules and regulations that courts and lawyers abide by when cross-examining children. Your experience in court? It was gentle. It was hand-held. It was cushioned by your age. You won’t get that this time around.
These little tricks you don’t like me for?
These are child’s play compared to the corners they’ll back you in just to work you up.
And you get worked up way too easily over these men. ”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” she said as she set her pen down and picked up her fork, “that your insanity plea is great, in theory, but I don’t think you’d be able to hold up to court scrutiny because the second someone rakes those men through the mud to get you to respond, you will.”
I watched her take a few more bites of her food before she chased it down with her drink.
“So,” she said after swallowing hard, “stop fighting me. It won’t do you any good. Let me help, or let me call someone else. But I’m telling you in my professional opinion: you will be the reason your insanity plea doesn’t work.”
As much as I hated to admit it, I knew she was right.
“The first time I saw them, Abbie, I came alive,” I whispered as my gaze locked with the cold food in front of me.
My lawyer smiled as she dragged her notebook and pen back toward her. “Sounds like a montage from a movie or something. When did you first interact with them?”
And as the memories drew me back, I couldn’t help but smile. “When they first ordered what would become their regular order at the bar.”
Dear God, I hope my men are okay.