Emancipated (28 page)
Authors: Reyes,M. G.
“She does put in a lot of late nights. I hope something comes of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well . . . seems like a lot of time to put in for no reward.”
“I think a lot of it may be her issues with dyslexia.”
“She's dyslexic?”
“Yeah. Once I found her downstairs at, like, two a.m., crying âcause she was so tired from fixing bugs in her code. She told me then. She makes a lot of mistakes because of the dyslexia. And it takes hours to debug or whatever.”
John-Michael was astonished. “Whoosh. That's my respect for her shooting through the roof.”
“I know.”
“And all for a game-cheating app?”
“Far as I know.”
“Too bad she doesn't come up with something more unique. I had a look onceâthere are, like, a
million
game-cheat apps.”
“Uniqueâyes! Then she could be the next Zuckerberg.”
John-Michael lay back on his towel, staring up. He pulled his shades over his eyes. “That would be cool, to be friends with Zuck.”
“Maya would be cooler.”
“She'd be
so much
cooler.” They were both silent for a few minutes until John-Michael said, “Way to distract me, by the way.” Candace made a puzzled sound, and he smiled. “From talking about if there's a guy you like, I mean. Is there?”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Sure.”
Candace grimaced. “I'm not attracted to any of the boys at school.”
“None of them?”
“No. Now that I'm working with actual men on the TV show, the guys at school seem, I don't know, like kids.”
“Ohâuh-huh.”
“What's that mean?”
“Older dudes,” he said. “I get it.”
“I didn't say that.”
“But you meant it. And I understand. I've met boys who've gotten into serious things with older guys. They can be very appealing. Their own place, a job, nice clothes.”
She said, “I've always kinda liked guys a few years older.”
“I'd settle for cute, honest, and kind.”
Candace ruffled John-Michael's hair. “Aww, such a sweetie pie. And you know how to make a pie, too. Some hunk of cheesecake is sure to snap you up.”
John-Michael allowed himself a quiet grin. Women could be
nice
. And he lived with four fantastic onesâmore than enough to erase the memory of spiteful Judy Aherne.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOFâNOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Lucy and Paolo were waiting for John-Michael in the living room. Lucy tried John-Michael's cell phone but when it rang she could feel it rattle from across the kitchen table.
“He's out. And he left his cell.”
But the cops just smiled humorlessly and sat down. “We'll wait.”
Paolo took one look at the cops and he was out the door. Late for a lesson, apparently. But Lucy knew for a fact he'd stopped giving lessons on Friday evenings. If she didn't know how straitlaced Paolo was, she might have suspected him of wanting to avoid the police. It didn't do any good anyway, because when Paolo returned after an hour, they were still there. This time, Lucy grabbed his arm and drew him into the kitchen. “Don't you leave me alone with these Nazi pigs.”
Paolo stayed after that, talking quietly or hardly at all. Grace arrived a little later, and Maya. No one left the kitchen. Grace suggested that they busy themselves with cleaning out the fridge and kitchen cabinets. It was either that or eat.
All the while, the cops waited, watching TV. One guy was Asian American, good-looking, and with a good physique, around thirty-five years old. The second was a woman, about the same age as her partner, short brunette haircut, navy pantsuit. They were playing it pretty cool, all understated. Yet something felt terribly wrong. Lucy had been on the wrong side of cops often enough to recognize a certain vibe.
They were high on anticipation. Something was going down tonightâsomething bigger than a new break in the mysterious case of Chuck Weller's death.
John-Michael got back around six thirty. Candace was close behind. They'd been to the beach; John-Michael still wore the towel across his shoulders. When he saw the two detectives on their sofa, he barely reacted. Just gave them a passing nod and made as if to head upstairs. But those cops couldn't have been more obviously there for him; they stood up the second he walked through the door.
The woman spoke first. “John-Michael. I'm Detective Winterâwe met two months ago. I'm going to have to ask you to get dressed and come down to the station with us.”
John-Michael stopped in his tracks, turned, almost painfully slowly, to face Winter. “What did you say?”
“Get some pants on, son.”
“Am I under arrest?”
Lucy caught his eye for the briefest instant before he disappeared, returning three minutes later dressed in black skinny jeans and Vans, a plain white T-shirt and a black-and-purple plaid shirt.
The male officer stood very straight. He said, “John-Michael Weller, you are under arrest for the murder of Charles Durham Weller.”
The female cop proceeded to read John-Michael his Miranda rights. The sound of those words was utterly chilling to Lucy. In the kitchen, amongst the housemates, there was a deathly silence. Lucy felt a tremble run through her. She stared at John-Michael, trying again to catch his eye. But he seemed unreachable. Like a lone sailboat, becalmed at sea.
Detective Winter continued. “Do you understand each of these rights I have explained to you?”
John-Michael nodded, expressionless.
“Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to us now?”
He shook his head.
“We're not planning to cuff you, John-Michael, but we can.”
Lucy stepped forward. “I'm coming with.”
The male cop set his face against hers. “I'm sorry, miss, but this is a very serious matter. It's best you don't get involved.”
Lucy pushed out her lower jaw. “He's a minor. Right? And he has a right to have counsel present during the interrogation.”
“We just told him he could call an attorney.”
“Right. So until an attorney gets down to the station, I'm his counsel. Got that?”
John-Michael placed a hand on her arm. “You don't have to do this.”
She turned to him. “Who's your lawyer, John-Michael, you know anyone?”
“I need to make my calls. I'm allowed three, right?” he asked with a glance at Detective Winter, who nodded.
Lucy continued. “I'm still coming. No way I'm gonna leave you alone with them.”
“We're going to Carlsbad, miss,” said the male cop. “There won't be a ride back.”
She glared. “Does this face look like I care?”
Paolo was at her side a second later. In her ear he whispered, “Lucy, you sure about this?”
She glanced at Paolo in surprise, more than a little surprised that he wasn't jumping in to back up their friend, too. “He's our friend. Of course I'm sure.”
“Okay then, I'll drive down, too. That way you have a ride home.”
Lucy nodded. Almost as an afterthought she squeezed Paolo's forearm. She couldn't tear her eyes from John-Michael. And nothing. Whatever he was feeling, if he was feeling anything, was buried down deep. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake some life into him. Get him to show some goddamn emotion.
He didn't know the cops the way she did. They acted smooth, friendly, and professional, obviously pleased that he was playing nice with them. But they were already sizing him up. Did he look like a killer, act like a killer, sound like a killer? Like a guy who would shoot his own dad full of heroin and watch him die? All he was showing was this cool, unflappable face. Easy to see it as the demeanor of a cold-blooded murderer.
Detective Winter sat next to John-Michael in the rear of the car. They put Lucy in the front passenger seat and made a big deal about the fact that they were bending the rules even letting her ride in the same car as her friend. No one spoke, all the way down to Carlsbad. The male copâhe told her his name was Shawn Leungâput the radio on to some country music station. Lucy wanted to make some crack about the weirdness of an Asian American cop listening to redneck music, but she didn't. Truth was, she kind of enjoyed it, too.
John-Michael had asked Lucy to make a call to his father's attorney, before they left the house. It was an hour before his cell rang again. Lucy turned to watch the female cop take the call. She spoke in monosyllables. When she hung up, the cop told John-Michael, “Your father's attorney is coming down.”
He simply nodded once. Then back to the inscrutable, blank face. The two cops exchanged a brief, bewildered glance. Then Winter gazed with open curiosity at John-Michael.
“Quit staring at him,” Lucy said.
“Miss Long, stay out of this.”
“Don't let her psych you out, JM.”
“Now why,” puzzled Winter, “would your father's own attorney agree to act as your counsel?”
There was a brief silence. “Because he's the executor of my father's will.”
The cop didn't say anything else. Lucy turned back to face forward, pondering. It was a good question, and a better move. If Chuck Weller's own lawyer was willing to back John-Michael, that certainly put a big dent in the case for any prosecution.
But John-Michael hadn't been charged yet, she reminded herself, only arrested. Pretty much everyone Lucy had seriously hung out with back in Claremont had been arrested at least once. On the other hand, being hauled in for holding, being drunk in public, or underage driving kind of paled into insignificance next to murder one. She tried not to think about it. Yeah. Maybe John-Michael's iceman routine was the way to go.
When they arrived at the station in Carlsbad, John-Michael's dad's attorney was already waiting. He was a picture of sober sincerity: smart suit, hands crossed over each other at his waist.
Lucy watched John-Michael get fingerprinted and escorted down a corridor where they took the mug shots. Paolo joined her a few minutes later in the reception area and pressed a cold can of Diet Coke into her hands. She accepted it gratefully but with a pang of guilt that she could take some comfort in the refreshment, while John-Michael remained dry-throated and scared.
In the stark, slightly shopworn surroundings of the station, a horrible sense of reality began to take form around them. A grimly familiar sensation of utter helplessness took hold of Lucy. She began to feel nauseous. The urge to get out of there was powerful. She kept thinking of JM. The apocalypse that was
headed his way. Jail. Court. Prison.
John-Michael asked for a couple of minutes alone with Lucy and his friends. The cops left him, but the attorney didn't. Lucy couldn't hold back any longer.
“John-Michael, what the hell?” Lucy felt the sudden gentle touch of Paolo's fingers on her arm. His eyes caught hers in silent warning.
John-Michael looked for a long moment at the attorney before answering Lucy. “I think . . . my dad's ex-girlfriend may have something to do with me being here.”
The attorney seemed reluctant to speak in front of Lucy and Paolo. Paolo took the hint and slunk back toward the vending machines.
“It's okay. Lucy's my best friend,” said John-Michael. “I trust her one hundred percent.”
His frank sincerity clutched at her heart. In that moment, she wanted to remain at his side for as long as this took.
“This isn't going to go away easily,” the attorney began. “I think you're looking at a night here, maybe two. They're trying to put a case together to charge you.”
John-Michael didn't answer.
Lucy said, “Is that gonna be possible?”
“They have some pages of a draft of a will. It does look more recent than the one we've executed. They have evidence that your father created the file on his computer.”
John-Michael closed his eyes and sighed. It was the first time Lucy had seen him register any emotion. And after all this, it wasn't terror, but frustration.
“Even with all that,” the attorney continued, “they don't have a signed, witnessed final copy. Your dad could have toyed with the idea of leaving the whole thing to frickin' SeaWorld for all it matters. What counts is what the official will says.”
“So he's clear?” Lucy said, uncertain. She still didn't really understand why a second will would be such a big deal.
“They're saying you destroyed the latest will, which I told them we know nothing about, but they're saying Chuck used a different lawyer.”
“Some buddy of Judy's, no doubt,” John-Michael said bitterly.
“That's a possibility,” the attorney admitted cautiously. “Their theory is that we executed an earlier version of the will. That John-Michael came to the houseâyou were seen by the cop, John-Michaelâand removed evidence.”
“How'd you find all this out?” Lucy asked.
The attorney gave a pale smile. “Judy Aherne doesn't give a damn who she tells this story to. Far as she's concerned, John-Michael's already convicted.”
Convicted
. The word slunk behind Lucy's ears and glowed hot.
The attorney continued. “John-Michael, this entire affair is built on some fairly tenuous accusations that I think we can work on, given time. My bet is that the only way they're going to be able to charge you is if you give them something. So you give them nothing. Not a whisper. Are we clear? You tell them
diddly-squat
.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOFâNOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
“Someone crack open this bottle for me, my hand's shaking so much. . . .”