A week passed, and I still had not gone back to the DEA. I had several missed calls from Jeremiah and messages I couldn’t be bothered to listen to. D still weighed heavily on my mind. My feelings for him were real, but he was a self-proclaimed monster and what Jeremiah had told me about him seemed to confirm it. Still, I knew that it had not been something D had done lightly. I tried to put myself in his shoes.
If I were in the middle of a field with men who had no qualms about killing me unless I killed my best friend, would I do it? Leaving the possibility of promotion as a result of my actions out of the equation, I tried to decide if I could kill someone I cared about in order to save myself. There was a part of me that would like to believe I wouldn’t, but how could I know unless I was in that situation?
In the end, I told myself that I would have made the same choice. The reasoning was simple when you boiled it down to its essential elements. Kill and you survive. Don’t kill and no one survives. Who would it have served for D to have refused to kill his friend? No one. It would have eased his guilty conscience, and I believed he had one. You don’t tattoo a symbol of the man you killed on your chest unless you see it as a penance for what you have been forced to do, a reminder not to ever be put in a position like that again.
I realized that, on some level, it was what drove D to stay on top. If you were the top of the food chain, no one told you what to do. You dictated to everyone around you, and they listened. D grew up defending himself against abuse. He joined up with men like himself, the only kind of men he knew, ruthless and violent. Then, he was forced to do something he didn’t want to do and he used that pain to climb on top, to achieve power over everyone around him.
Did that justify his behavior? His actions? No, but it at least helped to understand them from his point of view. Whether or not that made it any better wasn’t really clear, but being able to make some sense of how a young, innocent boy grows up to be a monster somehow helped me to accept that perhaps the man I had fallen for was the remnants of the man he might have been in a different environment. It changed nothing except my ability to live with myself.
My thoughts were disrupted by a knock at the door. I wasn’t expecting anyone, but perhaps it was a neighbor who had noticed I was home. So far, it had been a lot quieter since my return than I anticipated. My only interruption of peace had been Mrs. Peaches when I had rung her to let her know I was back and she need not bother checking on the house anymore. She had bent my ear for nearly a half hour before I could get her off the phone. I looked through the peephole and saw the face of Jeremiah. I began walking away.
“I hear you in there, Janessa. Don’t force me to make a scene in your pretty little neighborhood,” he barked through the door.
I groaned and turned around, opening the door and motioning for him to come in. I was surprised to find that Samuel had been standing to one side and waltzed in behind him. I shut the door behind them and frowned at the two of them.
“What do you want?”
“You know what we want, Janessa. We have unfinished business. You haven’t been returning my calls, so you’ve forced my hand. Now, you get a personal visit.”
“I feel like I’ve signed on with the mob.”
“No. The mob is nicer than we are.”
“I’m beginning to realize that. Might as well have a seat since you are obviously not going to leave me alone until I cooperate.”
“Correct.”
The two of them sat down on my sofa, and I sat in a chair opposite them, looking at them blankly.
“What is it that you want to know?”
“Everything. Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”
“That could take a while.”
“I’m sorry. We would have made an appointment, but oh, wait. We did make an appointment. You didn’t show up or return my calls. Now, you get to do this here and now, whether convenient or not.”
“When did you become such an asshole?”
“When you became uncooperative.”
“Fine. First, this goon sitting next to you hit on me, and then I fucked him, thinking I was going to get information out of him. He’s an asshole too.”
“I already know that.”
“You asked me to tell you everything. That is where I choose to start.”
Samuel was looking off with a vacant smile. I wanted to slap his smug, arrogant face so hard his teeth rattled. I could feel my anger rising and tried to get it under control. It wouldn’t do me any good. I just needed to get through this and get them out of here once and for all. I continued with everything I had learned while at the casino, leaving out anything that they didn’t already know and that I felt might incriminate D. Why I still chose to protect him, I wasn’t sure, but I did.
“I don’t think you are telling us everything.”
“I don’t care what you think.”
“None of what you have given us is useful in our investigation.”
“Guess this little intrusion of yours was a waste of time, then, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t be coy with me, Janessa. You are way out of your league here.”
“You’ve said that before. Are we done now?”
“For now. We’ll be in touch. I suggest you respond to my calls or messages next time unless you want us traipsing back across your perfectly manicured lawn.”
“Try to keep your feet on the walkway on your way out, and don’t feel the need to dawdle.”
Samuel chortled a little as he stood and I shot him an angry look. He smiled at me and winked. I felt like throwing something at him, but instead, I turned and walked to the door, opening it to discover Mrs. Peaches standing there looking confused.
“I didn’t even knock yet. I’m sorry. I didn’t notice you had company,” she said uncertainly.
“It’s okay, Mrs. P. They were just leaving.”
The two men nodded in her direction and made their way to the car as I motioned for her to come in and shut the door behind her.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“Oh, no, honey. Thank you. I can’t stay. I just saw those two men and well, after what happened to your father, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine. They are just working on his case and needed to discuss some things with me.”
“Oh, they are with the authorities, then. Good. I was so concerned.”
“I appreciate that, Mrs. P. Thank you for coming over.”
“No problem, honey. You just let me know if you need anything. Anything at all.”
“I will do that.”
I watched as she walked back to her house and then closed the door, leaning against it. Talking about D had only brought back memories that I had rather forget. A part of me wondered how he was, if he was okay, but I knew that he was capable of taking care of himself. He had done it before me and would do it with me gone. I tried to ignore the part of my brain that insisted upon adding that I was irrelevant to him.