Chapter 43 Off-Limits
OFF-LIMITS
Present day
“Conner, I need another favor,” I sighed as I set the whiskey on the counter. My laptop opened to the police report from years ago; it was Addams alright. I couldn’t view the specifics, as my credentials didn’t give me access.
“You know you’re in big shit right? Captain Marshals is pissed and Simmons is on a manhunt for you, I hope you know what you’re doing,” His unease filtered through the phone line.
“I know, its not the first time they’ve gotten in a hissy, I need you to pull up a case for me,”
“You got the file number?”
I gave him the number as I cleaned up the cooking utensils from earlier. Stashing the fettuccine in the fridge for later, I turned to grab a cork from the drawer. My eyes landed on the phone next to the corks, the screen illuminated in intervals clearly not relenting.
“I got it,” Conner said after a moment.
“Well?”
“It was a complicated case, the fingerprints were all over the house and the three men decease and one paralyzed from the waist down. The residing judge ruled it self defense and the case was swept under the rug. I’ll email you the details.
What’s the interest?” Conner’s voice had turned that fascinating tone when he was hours deep into a case.
“The man that was paralyzed did they say what facility he was at?”
“Hold on a sec.”
The waiting was killing me. I knew I shouldn’t have been looking into Addams right now, but something didn’t sit right.
There was a piece I was missing. I could admit that Summer was a killer.
I had seen the look in her eyes as she smiled at her arrest. She got off on the thrill of it all.
It was ingrained in her blood; the lifestyle wasn’t something you could shed off.
I glanced at the spare phone in the drawer, its screen lit up with the unknown caller ID for the seventh time.
It continued to flash again as the caller tried to reach me.
I didn’t want to talk to them; they were doing just fine without me.
Years in the making, I was not going to show my cards just because someone was getting cold feet.
“You there?”
“I’m here,” I replied as I closed the drawer.
“Riven Specialty Care, it’s under Mr. Moore they open at eight and Jones … ”
“Yeah?”
“Keep your head on, you don’t get too attached to this one okay?”
“Yeah yeah thanks Conner, I owe you one.”
“Get some rest, you sound tired.”
With that, the line deadened, and I was left staring at gruesome crime scene photos.
The bloodied poker chips, and the ripped school uniform.
The three men were in various stages of death.
A rabid or feral person caused this — someone out of their mind.
Scared, maybe? I didn’t know for sure. What I did know was that my firecracker had been killing from a young age.
I woke up handcuffed to my bed. “Not again,” I mumbled.
There was no sign of Summer. I had to remember not to drink too much around her.
I lost all semblance of a guard. She probably could have killed me again.
I rolled over to the nightstand. My phone screen lit up with the time, seven-forty five.
I swiped up on the device, clearing the hundred missed calls and texts from Simmons.
Begrudgingly I stretched into the side drawer for a spare handcuff key to unlock myself.
When I pulled back the sheet, I yelled out at the sight.
Blood smeared against my chest in block letters—
BANG!
“Jones I swear to God open this fucking door right now or I am breaking it down,” Simmons hollered as another crashing bang sounded against the door.
I smeared the blood against my chest in a scramble, catching note of my bloodied arm and the sticky side of my head, I stuffed my legs into discarded jeans. What the fuck did she do to me?
“Jones open up!” The banging wouldn’t stop as I made my way to the entryway.
Knock Knock Kno—
“What?” I bit out.
“What the fuck Jones? I thought you were dead. Where the hell have you been? God you smell like a bar, have you been drinking? Oh my God what the fuck happened to your arm? Why do you have blood on your chest?” Simmons accused and worried as she pushed through the doorway.
“Well good fucking morning to you too. Make yourself at home it’s not like I enjoy my privacy or anything.”
“You were supposed to copy me on the case and I had to find out by myself that the lawyer took the girl and left. What the fuck dude?” She sighed, flopping down on the couch, and grimaced when she pulled a thong out of the couch cushion.
“Really dude that’s gross.” I stared at her in confusion.
Addams left before Summer and me. Someone at that hospital must be covering for me, but why?
I fixed my face with a blank stare as I slammed the door closed.
Whoever took care of the security cameras at the hospital must have had an invested interest in Summer’s release.
Or they wanted to frame Addams. Not sure if this outcome was favorable or not, I put a mental note to check it out later when I wasn’t in present company.
“Well it’s not like I had time to clean up besides you know I don’t go home very often,” I shrugged, grabbing OJ from the fridge and pouring a shot of whiskey into it.
“Your liver is celebrating your death,”
I flipped her off, turning to swallow the contents of the jug.
“Not like you were going to let me drive anyways, besides hair of the dog to set you straight.”
She scrunched her nose. “Where do you think we are going?”
“Riven specialty care or whatever off Main Street”
“What’s there?” Her dark hair cascaded around her shoulders as she turned to survey the living room. I didn’t care for the snooping, but it did set me on edge.
My eyes landed on the drawer with the burner phone in it.
I knew that it wouldn’t lead back to anyone but me, but I didn’t need her investigating that side of me.
Deciding to play it cool and allow her snooping, I opened the drawer next to it.
“Hopefully a witness,” I grabbed a kitchen towel from the drawer, wetting it before smearing the blood off the side of my head and chest. “Don’t sound so thrilled, I mean I’ve only been working on this since forever,” the sarcasm dripped from my voice as Simmons started poking around the stacks of papers on the dinner table.
“Oh and the blood on your chest is what? Knife play? While you were out getting your dick wet I was actually busy tracking down Addams’ girlfriend.
You know the one you said took care of the ex-wife.
” She air-quoted the words ‘took care’ and I laughed a bit.
She really had the wrong ideas about organized crime.
It made me worry less than I looked at the scratch marks on my chest. “Woah dude you found a crazy bitch,” Simmons laughed after looking up from a stack of land agreements I had separated.
Off-limits. The phrase perplexed me as I looked down at the barely scratched surface of my skin. I didn’t drink that much last night, maybe a glass or two —
I uncorked the whiskey in a rush, taking a proper inhale of it. Did she poison me?
“What are you doing?” Simmons asked, coming around to the kitchen.
Oak, cinnamon, caramel and vanilla notes hit my nostrils as I inhaled, and I relaxed, setting it back down.
“I thought she might have drugged me?”
“Who?”
“Never mind that, let’s get going they should be open by now, you can catch me up on the girlfriend on the way there, let me just grab a shirt and meet you out front.”
“Whatever Jones, but I swear if you leave me in the dark next time I will cut your balls off and feed them to my dog,” Simmons opened the door slamming it behind her, I could hear the faint sounds of the engine start.
I rushed towards the bedroom, checking the bathroom for any signs of Summer.
The entire bathroom was displayed like a crazy conspiracy board.
The main difference was that instead of red strings connecting everything, it was blood.
A bright yellow sticky note caught my attention, and I carefully extracted it from the mass.
Honking sounded, and I stuffed the note in my pocket before throwing on a shirt and closing the bathroom door.
I didn’t have time to study her madness, as I jumped into the car and Simmons drove away.
The yellow note burned a hole in my pocket with every mile away.