Burn 2

Copyright 2013 by Dawn Steele

Cover art by Dawn
Steele

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dawn Steele is the New Adult romance pen name of Aphrodite and Artemis Hunt. Both Aphrodite and Artemis Hunt have had 23 books in the Top 100 Amazon Erotica and 12 books in the Top 100 of the overall Barnes and Noble store. Dawn believes that true love will conquer all, even if the circumstances appear cagey at first glance.

JAIL

The jail cell
is miserably chilly, and Devon slumps on the soiled blue and white ticking of the narrow mattress.

He is alone. They don’t usually put perps on a murder charge with other less dangerous perps
, probably for fear that he would murder someone else while he is on a roll. He has been here in this cell for goodness knows how long, because they confiscated everything on him, including his watch. And there isn’t exactly a clock on the wall.

He has no shoes, no belt, no personal effects.
Nothing to form a noose with and hang himself from the ceiling lamp before they send him off to the electric chair – or whatever it is they do to convicted murderers in the state of New York.

No. They want him fit and healthy and ready to face whatever it is they are going to make him face.

He has already made his one phone call.

It was to Abby.

“I’m all right,” he said to her, trying to keep his voice cheerful and upbeat.

He wa
s already sorry about the ruckus he created while the police dragged him away yesterday morning. It wouldn’t do to have Abby bunching her hair in her fists over him. He remembered the burn marks on her palms, the ones she wouldn’t tell him about. The very palms he cradled in his hands and smeared cream all over so that they would absorb through her skin and heal her inside, somehow, the way he couldn’t seem to.

Her voice was steady, although he could detect the hints of tremulousness in it
through her forced cheer. It was as though they were trying to match each other for false cheeriness.

“Are they treating you well?” she wanted to know.

He looked around his deplorable cell.

“Great,” he said.
“Couldn’t be better.”

“Are you getting enough to eat?”

He hadn’t eaten anything all day. Couldn’t force it down into his queasy stomach.

“It was great. They fed me with a wholemeal bread sandwich, with a slice of ham in it. And a tomato.”

The tomato was the only thing he nibbled at.

“Doesn’t sound too bad then,” she says.

“It isn’t.”

Who was he trying to kid? Not her, certainly.

“Hang in there, Devon. I’m getting help.”

She couldn’t get help
, he thought. She was a stranger in New York. She didn’t have any money on her.

Still, he didn’t want to make it seem like he was doubting her.

“Thanks,” he said. “Um . . . I think going to Billy Dee would be a good start, Abby. He knows a couple of lawyers who can help me. Tell him I’ll owe him and I will pay back every red cent when I get out.”

This was going to cost him huge, he knew. No amount of slumming was going to
ease the hole in his wallet after this was over, if he didn’t get thrown into the slammer for the rest of his life.

“I will.” Her voice on the other side was muffled. “I know a couple of lawyers
too . . . let me get a head start.”

“You know lawyers?”

He tried to rake his brains for anyone she might have known. He couldn’t think of any lawyers in their milieu of associates. They didn’t have many friends.

Still, she was a working salesgirl at Rachel’s store. She had plenty of opportunities to
mingle with the considerably moneyed clientele.

“
I know a couple of lawyers,” she said. “They are friends of my father.”

Just who is your father?
he wanted to ask, but bit back the question forming on his lips. No questions, he remembered. That was the deal.

“I’ll get you out, Devon
. Just give me time.”

“I know you will. I’ll wait.”

“Meanwhile, don’t do anything rash.”

“I won’t.”

She paused.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

He rang off, and they led him back to his cell.

*

He spends
the whole night tossing and turning and listening to the sounds of the other arrested perps protesting violently as they were led into cells around him. He tries to close his eyes, but sleep is an elusive maiden.

He finds
his mind drifting to Rachel Krieg. His murdered client. And what happened that fateful Saturday night. He can already imagine being interrogated by the police.

What should he tell them?

“Hey!” He hears a sharp whisper from the cell next to his.

He pricks his ears up.

“Hey!” The whisper comes again. “Is there anybody in there?”

He cautiously gets off his bunk.

“I just need to talk to someone, that’s all.” The voice, which has gotten considerably louder, sounds extremely young. And frightened.

Devon listens
for more sounds, like a police officer’s footsteps from the end of the corridor, but there are none. No one had forbidden him to talk to anyone else here. They weren’t exactly under a vow of silence.

He pads barefoot to the wide-set bars.

“I’m here,” he says in a low voice. He has never been in jail before and he feels prickly, as if he is an intruder in someone else’s house.

“Thank God,” the voice says. There comes a little sniffle. “I don’t want to be
in here. My name is Matthew, by the way.”

“Hi, Matthew. I’m Devon.”

A pause.

Then: “I got busted
for DUI.”

“Drunk driving?”

“Yeah.”

“How
old are you, Matthew?” Devon wonders if anyone else in the other cells is listening in.

“Eighteen.”

“You OK in there?”

“No. I had to call my Dad. He’s coming over to get me now. He’s going to be so mad.”

“You still in high school?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Nah. I left high school long ago.”

“You’re lucky.” There is a tinge of envy in Matthe
w’s voice. “I wish I could leave school and get a job, but my Dad wants me to go to college. And now, he’s going to be so mad he’s going to pack me off to somewhere I don’t want to be . . . like Dartmouth.”

“
Don’t knock him. You’re lucky to have a Dad.” Devon wonders about his own father. Would he even care that his son has been arrested for murder, wherever he is?

Matthew says,
“What did they throw you in for? DUI too?”

Devon hesitates. He wonders how
much he should talk about his situation.

He decides to go for broke.

“They arrested me for killing someone . . . but I didn’t do it.”

There is a moment of pure silence from the other end. Then
there is a softly whispered:

“Jesus.”

Devon holds his breath. But there is nothing else from Matthew. He can hear surreptitious footsteps withdrawing from the bars of the other cell. A quiet sucking in of breath. A suppressed sniffle. And the cold chill of fear emanating from the other side which is palpable to him even from his cell.

Fear of him.

Guilty before proven innocent
, he thinks miserably. Is this how it is to be? He is now to be viewed with caution, like a radioactive piece of lint. And all because of what happened with Rachel Krieg.

If he can
fully recall what really happened with Rachel Krieg.

Devon waits for a while before calling out in a low voice, “Matthew? Are you all right?”

He hears the sharp intake of a hoarsely drawn breath, and then a slight whoosh, as if the person in the other cell has been holding in his lungs until he can withstand it no longer.

There is no reply.

Devon waits for several minutes before quietly padding back to his bunk. He lies there in the dark, staring at the walls and ceiling, contemplating everything and nothing.

I’m
officially a monster
, he thinks, the coldness creeping around the fence of his heart.

The offices of Dresschler, Kruger and Steen are pristine and gleaming with rich wood interiors, even at the reception desk. The entire décor has been lighted up by soft yellow beams from unseen overhead lamps, effectively lending the office an aura of understated classiness.

Abby h
as never been here before. She has only been to the branch office in New Orleans with her father.

She has dressed up
nicely today. Proper pants, not jeans. A woolen jacket over a cotton shirt. Her hair is neatly combed back. Her fingernails are polished and clean.

“Mr. Helmut Dresschler, please,
” she says to the receptionist.

The receptionist is
young, pretty, heavily made-up, suicide blonde. She sizes Abby up and down as if inspecting a girl guide selling brownies.

“And who would you be?”

“I’m Abigail Holt. I have an appointment to see him.”

“I see.” The receptionist’s tone is disbelieving. “Let me clear this up with his personal assistant.”

Suicide blonde here was probably one of those ‘popular’ girls in high school with a chip on their shoulder that is almost as big as a shoulder pad, Abby surmises. Maybe Blondie has been a cheerleader or the Queen Bee of her own ragtag team of polished high school sophisticates, but she is a receptionist now. Certainly not the profession she probably had in mind when she was embracing her prom queen tiara.

Blondie
makes a to-do about picking up the phone and reluctantly dialing a number. Abby waits in front of the desk, willing herself not to kick something in.

“Sammie? It’s Fiona here. Yeah.
” Pause. Her voice turns gushy. “No way! You are kidding, right?”

Pause.

The receptionist’s face becomes animated as the voice on the other side jabbers away in a high-pitched tone which suggests a huge amount of gossip is being relayed in the shortest amount of time. Abby personally thinks Sammie on the other end sounds like a chipmunk. She refrains from rolling her eyes and notes the nametag of the receptionist:

‘FIONA DENT’.

“So was the sex amazing?” Fiona’s thickly coated lips break out in a lascivious smile. “Uh huh.” Pause. “Uh huh. I, like, know!”

Abby clears her throat.

Fiona makes a face. “Oh, there’s someone to see Mr. Dresschler here.” Pause. “Uh huh. Says she is an Abigail Holt. Teenager.”

Abby grits her teeth. Yes, she technically is a teenager, but the blonde receptionist
makes it sound like a mental handicap.