Chapter 27 #2
Ciaran glanced at the detective who had moved on from the kitchen to the desk under the window in the dining room, and then came and sat next to her.
Jal studied the bruise that had bloomed along his jaw beside the scabbed-over split lip.
Another brush-burn like bruise colored the opposite cheek, but he otherwise seemed okay.
Jal cupped the injury gently and Ciaran gave her a small smile and kissed her palm before taking her hand and lacing his fingers with hers and holding it on his knee.
“I was just telling the detective here about what happened in the park,” she said. “How you came to my rescue.”
“Oh, aye,” Ciaran responded, and gave her hand a squeeze. He pointed to his face. “As you can see, Detective, the lout—"
“Mr. Paolinelli?”
“Aye, Mr. Paolinelli.” Ciaran pronounced the name carefully, sounding like he was grinding every syllable between his teeth. “Jal didn’t do anything other than just be there. He declared that she was his, grabbed her, and started trying to drag her away.”
“Yes, we have your statement, Mr. Gray.” Detective Takeda replied. “And the statements of several bystanders on the scene. Ms. Morrow just corroborated it. Though I do see that one of the witnesses said that Mr. Paolinelli was saying that your name was ‘Sam’?”
Jal nodded. “I declined the protection that was offered after he was convicted, but I did legally change my name to make myself harder to find when he got out.”
“What was your old name?”
Jal told him, though her mouth had trouble forming the words. Sam Colleran was the person who had almost died by Andy’s hand. Jal Morrow was the one who had lived. The detective made a note.
“Takeda.”
They all looked over at the dining area to find Detective Ward standing beside the table, holding up a few small bundles of dollar bills in her gloved hand. By where she was standing, she must have found the hidden drawer.
Ciaran gripped Jal’s hand as the detective crossed the room to his partner, motioning for them to remain on the sofa.
Detective Takeda studied the bills and rifled through the drawer’s few remaining contents with his pen.
In her mind, Jal saw a handful of coins, a necklace that actually belonged to her own grandmother, and a single ladies wallet wiped clean of any fingerprints and containing only cash.
“Looks to be maybe a thousand or so,” he murmured to his partner, though it was clearly audible across the room. “This is a lot of cash Ms. Morrow.”
“I know,” she replied, keeping her voice casual even though her heart was racing.
“I’ve never really done much with banks.
I grew up in rural Pennsylvania with a grandmother who lived in a trailer in the middle of nowhere.
The nearest bank was thirty minutes away when the car was actually running.
We used cash for everything, and I just never made the switch. ”
“What do you do for work?” Detective Ward demanded.
“I work at a friend’s restaurant mostly, and pick up odd jobs here and there.
The building is rent controlled, so I don’t have a lot of expenses.
” she explained. “I still have a little of the inheritance from my parents when they died when I was a kid, but it’s not much.
A couple thousand. I can show you where it’s hidden. ”
Detective Ward placed the money on the table and was none too gentle as she pushed the drawer shut.
Jal cringed at the sound the table made skidding across the floor as she got to her feet.
She led the way into her bedroom and dragged the chair by the door over to the bathroom doorway.
She gestured to the detective and then sat on the end of her bed.
“That grate above the door lifts down, you’ll find an envelope inside. ”
The detective eyed her warily for a moment as if wondering what else Jal might be hiding in there, but she glanced at her partner who had moved to the doorway, Ciaran’s pale face visible over his shoulder, and climbed onto the chair.
She staggered as her heeled boots sunk into the cushion, but she managed to retrieve the envelope and stepped down to the floor, dropping the grate with a clang at her feet.
She removed the rubber band and opened the envelope.
It was worn, the gold color faded nearly to white.
The logo under Detective Ward's thumb was nearly illegible but had come from one of the banks back in her home town. No lie there, at least.
“My parents didn’t have much, but I was their only child, and my grandmother made sure most of it was saved.” Jal told her, the lies rolling easily off her tongue now. “But it’s been almost twenty years. I think there’s about eight or ten thousand there. That’s all that’s left.”
Ward thumbed through the contents of the envelope, near bursting with bills, and tipped her head to study what was left of the logo.
Takeda stepped inside and took it from his partner and looked inside. “Do you have any records for the inheritance?”
Jal shook her head. “I left home at seventeen right out of high school. I didn’t think to take something like that with me. Just took the cash and moved to the city to try to make a better life for myself.” That part at least was true.
Takeda considered that for a moment. The envelope crinkled in his grip when he glanced at his partner. The eager glint in Ward’s eyes sent a chill down Jal’s spine.
Ciaran’s eyes burned into the back of her neck, but resisted the urge to turn, certain that if she did, there was no way she could conceal what she was thinking from showing plainly on her face. As long as he was behind her, Jal could keep her thief’s stony facade in place.
Before her partner could speak. Ward took the envelope from his hand with an expression that said she thought Takeda was crazy for having any kind of restraint, and pointed toward the bedroom door. “If you could go back out in the living room, we’ll finish the search in here.”
Her tone was polite, but there was no mistaking that she was enjoying this. Jal went, her calm mask cracking as she had expected as soon as she saw Ciaran’s face. She went straight into his arms and hid her expression in the folds of his coat.
Ciaran wrapped his arms around her and put his mouth close to her ear. “They have a search warrant? For what?”
“What do you think?” She murmured back. Though having her home searched felt like yet another violation, her heart slowed just from having him nearby. “It’s Andy, I’m sure of it.”
Ciaran turned backed into the living room but still kept his voice to the barest breath of a whisper. “Bet you’re glad I cleared out all those hidey holes when I did now, aren’t you?”
Jal huffed a nervous laugh and led the way to the sofa. From the bedroom came the sounds of drawers being opened and slammed shut, of the mattress being tossed around. She winced and Ciaran gripped her hand.
She burrowed into his shoulder when he put an arm around her, breathing in his scent of musky soap and sandalwood, and tried to remember if there was anything hidden in her room that Ciaran hadn’t already found.
Ciaran pressed a kiss to her temple and held her close until Takeda emerged from her bedroom. From behind him came the sound of clattering bottles, Ward must have turned her sights on the bathroom.
A memory flashed through her mind, and she clamped down on Ciaran’s hand. He glanced down at her, but couldn’t ask what was wrong before Takeda was standing before them.
The detective perched on the edge of the coffee table. “I think we’re just about finished here.”
“Is Andy going back to prison?”
“That remains to be seen, Ms. Morrow.”
Ciaran scowled. “What does that mean?”
“It’s up to the courts.”
“He just spent two years in prison. Within weeks of release, he tried to kidnap me and assaulted my boyfriend, and 'it remains to be seen'?” Jal demanded, her voice rising.
It was Ciaran’s turn to squeeze her hand in warning. She took a steadying breath and looked down at their linked hands, trying to draw some of Ciaran’s steadiness into her. “You won’t disclose my address to him, will you?” Jal asked, her voice was soft, but much more even.
“No ma’am.”
She brought up her head and locked her gaze on Takeda. “I’ll file a restraining order if I need to,” she continued, running a hand through her hair to clear her vision. “I need you to please do whatever it takes to keep him away from me.”
“Of course,” Takeda agreed.
“Takeda.”
All three of them snapped their attention to the bedroom door, where Detective Ward stood with a trio of bracelets hanging from the shaft of a ballpoint pen, two tennis bracelets sparkling with diamonds and a half dozen shades of amethyst, and a gold charm-style chain with a single heart hanging from the clasp.
“Are these part of your inheritance as well, Ms. Morrow?” Ward asked, the triumph that now filled her eyes turned Jal’s stomach. In her other hand was a blue glass jar and a yellow lid which had held the bracelets instead of the menthol cream the label advertised.
When the silence stretched a little too long, Takeda sighed and got to his feet. “Miss Morrow, I think you’re going to have to come with us.”