Tumbledown (16 page)

Esther frowned at the fresh blood seeping through the dressings. “Do you want me to call a doctor?” she asked Sarah.

“No, thank you,” Sarah said, profoundly grateful for her concern. “I’m fine.”

Impatient to reassert his authority over the proceedings, the officer positioned her with her arms outstretched at her sides and began a thorough search. As he worked his hands around her body, she stared straight ahead, trying not to think of the last men who had done this to her, trying not to think of anything at all. By the time he had finished, she was sweating and swallowing convulsively against the bile rising in her throat. He ignored her, scribbling notes onto his paperwork. There wasn’t much to document; she had emptied her pockets when she had gotten dressed that morning.

Another DNA swab from her mouth was added to her file. Then, even though her fingertips still bore the ink-stain from the prints taken on the night of Lyssa’s murder, the officer repeated that process too, seemingly determined to place a tick into every box. On his order, she removed the laces from her sneakers and took off her single piece of jewelry: her wedding ring. It was the first time she had been without it since the day of the ceremony. He sealed it in a plastic bag and tossed it into a tray on the desk.

“Move over here.”

She followed him across to a blank wall, where she was made to hold a board showing her name and a number as he took a series of photographs. When he was satisfied with the quality of his shots, he told Esther she could return to her desk. With the processing completed, she had no grounds to argue; she left the room, touching Sarah’s arm as she went.

Sarah watched the door shut, her pulse pounding against her breastbone. She noticed there was no light flashing on the camera above her head, and wondered who had turned it off and when.

The officer was also watching the door. He waited until the locks reset and then used Sarah’s collar to drag her across to the closest wall. Pressing her face up against it, his knee digging into her buttocks, he refastened the cuffs around her wrists and ratcheted them down tightly. Aware that any show of resistance on her part would only give him the excuse he was looking for, she held herself rigid as he spoke directly in her ear.

“Lyssa Mardell was a good friend of mine.” His voice was low, the threat unmistakable. “You deserve everything you get, you vicious little queer.”

His hand still on her collar, he hauled her to the first cell and shoved her inside so forcefully that she collided with the breezeblock wall opposite. Despite having the wind knocked out of her, she turned as quickly as she could, knowing she was too vulnerable with her back to him. He stared at her for a long moment, his fists clenching and unclenching, before he seemed to regain control of his temper, spat at her feet, and walked out of the cell. A key ground in the lock, the viewing hatch slammed shut, and she listened to his footsteps fade.

As soon as there was silence, her legs buckled beneath her. She slumped where he had left her, against the rough wall.

“Fucking hell,” she whispered, irrationally relieved to be locked alone inside a tiny cell.

She stayed on the floor until her various aches settled to a tolerable level. Then she pushed to her knees, using the wall to help her stand. Turning in a slow circle, she took stock of her surroundings—not that there was much to take stock of, the cell being barely eight feet square. Devoid of natural daylight, it relied on a harsh overhead light that cut into every corner. The length of one wall was dominated by a solid raised slab, on which a rubber mattress had been thrown, and a small metal toilet with a discolored rim was bolted onto the adjacent wall. Someone had obviously tried to remove the stains and smears littering the paintwork, but it had been a halfhearted effort, and the heat trapped in the tiny space intensified the foul smell.

Sitting as close to the edge of the mattress as she could, Sarah tried to find a position that would relieve the strain on her bound arms. She groaned as she felt sweat begin to trickle down her chest and her back. She felt thirsty but sick to her stomach, and she was already missing Alex terribly. When she closed her eyes, the light was still bright, the silhouette of the toilet lingering on her retina. She kept her eyes closed, letting the image melt away, and wondered how long it would be before someone came for her.

*

Alcohol was strong on Caleb’s breath as he gripped Leah around her waist and pulled her to sit on his knee. Holding her in place with one arm, he used his free hand to increase the volume on the television set, drowning out the music playing in the apartment below theirs.

“What goes around comes around, bitch,” he said, throwing the remote down and picking up his beer. Leah froze, assuming at first that he was speaking to her, but he was watching the screen intently, his grin widening to reveal his teeth.

She recognized both of the young women in the news report. The upper left corner of the screen held an image of the paramedic Caleb had murdered. It was a stock photograph, the same one used in the newspapers piled up on the table. The remainder of the screen was dominated by footage of Sarah Kent being paraded in front of the cameras by the police. With the media unaware that she had once used a different name, the scrolling banner touted the arrest of “Sarah Hayes” and made no mention of any other suspects being sought in connection with the murder. That Caleb had known this all along was so obvious that Leah felt ashamed for not having figured it out before. Since the night of the murder, his contact must have kept him informed as to what the police were doing and who their main suspect was, which explained why he had been confident enough to stay in the area. Not only had he killed an innocent woman, he was now sitting gloating as another was wrongly accused of the crime.

He raised his bottle to salute Sarah as someone in the crowd threw a missile at her, and then he pulled Leah down into a kiss. His mouth was sticky against hers. “Just the cop left now,” he said. “An eye for an eye. So I guess she gets to pay for my daddy.”

His beer slipped from his fingers, spilling foam onto the carpet.

“I’ll get you another,” she said quickly, trying to prevent a violent reaction, but his eyes were already half-lidded and he didn’t stir when she slid from his knee. She left a fresh bottle beside him and went to sit by the window.

Gazing at the perfect blue sky, she tried to block the television images from her thoughts: two lives ruined, and he was already plotting to ruin a third. A sudden surge of nausea made her mouth water. She opened a pack of saltines and ate one to ease the sickness that plagued her all day. She was never sure if it was caused by the baby or Caleb. Clean air drifted through the open window from the river below; she looked out onto the wide, constant flow of water. On the riverbank, a child threw bread for the geese and clapped his hands in delight when they ate it greedily. She traced her fingers across her abdomen, her imagination springing to life, giving her a glimpse of what could be possible for her and her baby. In that single moment, she felt a burst of happiness. Then, as if a switch had been flicked, it was gone.

*

Alex had started out sitting on the sofa and ended up perched on the edge of the coffee table, as close to the television screen as she could get and still focus. The local cable channel had interrupted its regular schedule of soaps and crappy game shows to air a special bulletin featuring Sarah’s arrest. For almost two hours, Alex had watched an unvarying loop of footage showing Emerson leading Sarah into the police station.

Shards of glass in the far corner of the room picked up the colors on the screen and reflected them back at Alex. The anger that had made her smash the bowl against the wall had slowly dissipated, taking with it the shock and hatred and leaving her only a bitter grief. As a police officer, she had always considered perp walks to be a necessary evil, something that her superiors clamored for and that she tried not to think about too deeply. Watching Sarah undergo the ritual humiliation, knowing that she was innocent and yet presumed guilty by everyone there, forced Alex to see the process in an entirely new light. That Quinn had arranged it, or at the very least approved it, hurt her more than she would ever have expected.

As the commercials began, she stabbed a finger on the mute button and picked up her phone, but found there were no voice mails or e-mails from Castillo. Intent on doing something,
anything
that might help, she collected her keys, fastened her Glock onto her belt, and went into the kitchen. Emerson would still be at the station, which meant she had time to get to Ruby and find his apartment, maybe even ask a few questions if any of the neighbors proved cooperative.

About to unlock the back door, she hesitated, looking at the answer machine. Sarah would have the right to three phone calls. As Alex had already arranged a lawyer for her, she would undoubtedly use those privileges to call home. Uncertainty seized Alex; she knew there were numerous places out on the road where she would lose her cell phone signal. The possibility of missing a call from Sarah made her decision an easy one, and she threw her keys down so hard that they skidded along the countertop. Leaving them where they landed, she clicked the switch on the kettle.

When the coffee was ready, she carried her mug and a slice of fruitcake through into the living room, setting them on the table next to her cell phone and the house phone. She turned the television back on but left it silent; it wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. As soon as she was settled, Flossie sat on her knee and began to purr, oblivious to her agitation. Biting the skin at the side of her fingernail, Alex watched Emerson shield Sarah from the crowd and tried her best to figure out why the hell he would bother to do that if it was his scheming that had put her there in the first place.

*

The scratch of a key in the lock made Sarah jolt her head up. She wanted to move, to push herself into the farthest corner until she knew who was coming through the door, but her body refused to obey her commands quickly enough. For all Quinn’s reported haste, he had left her in the cell for what felt like hours, and the pain from her restrained wrists had not only exhausted her but rendered her unable to focus on anything else. If he had intended to break her down prior to interrogation, he had done a good job.

Annoyed by her passivity, she forced herself to sit up properly, ignoring the spasms that ran like electric shocks into her numbed fingers. The door opened slowly, and the officer who had processed her stepped over the threshold, holding a bottle of water in one hand and a set of keys in the other. Reminding herself that she had survived far worse, she remained perfectly still as he sat right beside her, invading her personal space. That she didn’t cower or otherwise react seemed to disconcert him; he pushed back so that his thigh was no longer touching hers, but then, as if punishing her for his own lapse, he took hold of her handcuffs and casually lifted them.

“Oh God, don’t…” She tried to twist away but he caught hold of her hair.

“You listening to me?” he hissed, raising the cuffs another inch.

Too breathless to answer, she nodded.

“I’m going to take these off now, and you’re going to play nice, drink your water, and not breathe a fucking word about them to anyone. Y’know why?” He gave her head a shake, mocking her inability to speak. “Because a good buddy of mine is working the night shift down here, and he knows how to turn that little camera off too.”

He let go of her and she bowed her head, breathing through her mouth until the pain became bearable and she no longer felt faint. By the time her vision cleared, he had taken the cuffs off, but her arms were deadened and useless and she couldn’t lift her hands. He held the bottle of water to her lips, tipping it too high. It was evident from his haste that he was working to a deadline. She struggled to swallow quickly enough and water spilled onto her shirt, making him grin. She didn’t care. The cell was stifling and the water gloriously cold; he could’ve emptied the bottle over her head and she would have smiled and thanked him for his trouble. She licked her lips, savoring the last droplets as he screwed the lid back on. She felt better, calmer, now that she knew Quinn was unaware of what his subordinate had done to her. She could cope with one man’s vendetta; a conspiracy involving Avery’s entire police force had been a far more terrifying prospect.

The officer was scrutinizing her, obviously reluctant to take her anywhere until she had recovered enough to avoid rousing suspicion. She made him wait as she massaged her wrists and rotated her aching shoulders. When he checked his watch for the third time, his forehead already running with sweat, she finally relented. Placing her hands back in her lap, she waited for his next instruction.

“Your lawyer is here to see you,” he said, surreptitiously dabbing at the dampness on his upper lip. “Play nice, remember?” He yanked her up by her arm, grinding his fingers into her bicep.

“I remember.” She forced the words out.

He took her out of the cell and past the desk, walking her beneath the camera whose light was now blinking reassuringly. He held open the door of a small washroom and pushed her inside.

“Two minutes,” he told her. “Clean yourself the fuck up.”

*

Bridget Reagan shook Sarah’s hand firmly.

“Call me ‘Bridie,’” she said, by way of introduction. She was a small woman with an unassuming demeanor, but when she caught sight of the bloodied bandages around Sarah’s wrists, her eyebrows arched almost to her hairline.

“Are they treating you okay?” Her tone implied she already knew the answer.

“I’m fine.” Sarah tucked her hands beneath the table. There had been a fresh bar of soap in the washroom, but the officer hadn’t thought to bring clean dressings to cover up the evidence of his abuse.

“Mmhm.” Bridie fixed her with a look. “Let me know the instant you’re not ‘fine.’ I understand that you don’t want to rock the boat right now, but letting them hurt you is not an option, okay?”