CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jillian
GETTING IN MY JEEP I head to the Blue Café, if Alessandra is not there then I’ll swing by her place and wait for her till she shows up. Glancing in my rear view mirror Mac is right behind me on his motorcycle. I have to admit, I feel safer knowing he’s there.
Noticing Alessandra’s squad car in the parking lot, I pull in and go inside. She’s sitting in our booth with a plate of food in front of her, her head shoved into a folder, with a pen in hand.
Sliding into the booth I grab a fry and pop it into my mouth. Her eyes flick up angrily, and her face pales.
“OH MY GOD!” She jumps over the table, pulling me into a death-gripping hug. “I have been so fucking worried,” she cries into my shoulder.
“I’m fine,” I laugh, trying to pry her arms off me. She tightens her hug, nearly cutting my breathing off. “Love me less!” I croak, slapping at her hands.
She pulls back, and wipes at her teary eyes.
“Where have you been?” Sitting down in her seat, my eyes fall to the folder. There are print outs of my face on a missing person’s poster. “Oh, yeah, I was going to put them up today.”
I smile. It’s nice to know if I go missing someone around here would look for me.
I tell her everything about what happened. How I didn’t kill my father, how we ran to the Devil’s Dust, about Frank, even Cross, and how it all ended.
She sits there staring at me, mouth popped open.
“Say something,” I insist.
“Holy shit.” She flips her hair over her shoulder. “Looks like our favorite outlaw saved the day then.”
Looking out the window, I brace myself. “There is one other thing.” Glancing back at her, her eyebrows raise in waiting. “I’m pregnant.”
Her face goes lax. “Shut up, that’s so not funny.” I don’t laugh. “You’re serious?” Her eyes widen like saucers. “Are you keeping it?”
I nod, biting on my bottom lip. “You know you’ll have desk duty for like a year, right?”
I scoff. “I don’t even have a job right now, I was wanted last time I checked.”
Her lips twist sympathetically. “You should just go to the department and explain to them what happened.”
“If I do that then I throw Zeek under the bus of the justice system. They’re going to want to know who killed my father, and then they’re going to want proof.”
“I see your point. Tell them Cross shot your dad then. Where is the weapon now?”
“I don’t know, we ran, remember?”
“That’s right…Well, you know as well as I do, no evidence, no crime.”
I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s making me sick to my stomach just thinking about going to the department and lying.
“How is my mother? Have you talked to her today?” I change the subject.
“Not today, she’s probably getting ready for the funeral. It’s in an hour.”
My stomach drops, my head falling in my hands. A funeral, how could I forget such a thing?
“I didn’t even think to ask.”
“Well, you’ve had your hands full with being kidnapped and getting knocked up, I could see that. You’re going though, right?”
Taking my bottom lip between my teeth I look out the window of our booth. “I’ve learned some interesting things about my father over the last week, he was not who I thought he was.”
“I’ve heard stories.”
“You have?”
“I mean, it was just talk around the department. I didn’t think any of them were true. Were they?”
Inhaling a breath I think about what Zeek told me, memories of my father resurfacing. I was angry with my father with the way he lied, and presented himself as something he wasn’t. How he set me up in a department so dirty, I was bound to walk away with stained hands, or be killed. But, the moments that meant the most to me, even if they were pretending, they’ll always be a part of me. “Probably so.”
“Wow.” Her eyebrows reach her hairline, her jaw dropping dramatically. “So you’re not going then?”
“I need to see my mother, and even if my father was a creep, I can’t shake the thoughts of the times he wasn’t a Lieutenant and was actually a father.” I look at her, and she nods in understanding.
“I get that, I totally do. You’re a bigger person than me though, ‘cause I’d hike my beautiful black skirt up, and piss on his grave if he was my father.” The corner of my mouth curves into a smirk imagining Alessandra pissing on a grave.
“I am going to run home and change. I’ll catch you later.”
Standing from the booth, I race home to change into something morbid and black.
Zeek
FLEXING MY KNUCKLES, blood splattered on them, Flex, Machete, and I have cleared out those who were patched in by my uncle, or those who turned on us and sided with him. There isn’t a lot of us left, but I’d rather have ten loyal men, than thirty untrustworthy men behind me.
Sitting on a stool, Machete hands me a beer.
“You.” I point at him. “You trashed Jillian’s house.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“I picked up a pair of your fucking underwear, man,” I explain with disgust.
“You probably have the clap now.” Felix laughs, sipping on his beer. His hair pulled up into one of those man ponytail things.
“Shut up, she was clean.” Machete throws a beer top at him.
“Wait, you fucked someone in her house?” Machete looks at me with wide eyes. “You get prospect duty for that, asshole!” I narrow my eyes at him.
“How did you let the club get this out of control, I never understood that?” Aunt Carola interrupts our back and forth as she picks up some broken glass from one of our fights.. “I mean, you were the President of the club, baby, why let anyone but yourself make the rules.”
“I respected my uncle, hell, I was just a kid when I was put in the position of being president. I looked to my uncle for direction on a lot of things. It never occurred to me that at some point he started working me, making me do shit for him out of his own best interest and not the club’s. Not until it was too late, and even then I didn’t want to believe it.”
Everyone goes quiet, and I take a sip of my beer.
“So, if we’re done swapping sentimental stories, we going to finish getting this place cleaned up or…?” Felix asks, derision on his face. Laughing, I punch him in the arm.
“What are we going to do about Cross?” Machete asks the million-dollar question when Aunt Carola walks out of the room.
“You guys didn’t find anything on him?”
“Nothing. Not even a blood trail,” Felix informs.
“Work the town, find him.”
“You think Frank was blowing smoke up your ass when he said Cross was your dad?” Felix flicks a brow, a beer halfway to his mouth. I sigh, sick of this conversation. It makes me sick to think about the possibility.
“No, I don’t. That’s why we need to find him.”
“Why is that?” Machete looks confused.
“Because if I was Cross, which a part of me is, I’ll be coming back. And when I do, it’ll make the fucking history books.”
Every weasel has to surface at some point, and when he does I’ll be there with my gun down his throat.
Jillian
I LOOK ON FROM AFAR. Everyone is at the cemetery circled around my father’s grave, a flag draped over his casket. It doesn’t feel right to step up there, not when I have the baby of the man who murdered my father in my womb.
Plus, I’m not sure I wouldn’t get arrested on the spot. I still need to handle that.
After everyone leaves, I spot my mother sitting on a concrete bench. Wiping my tears, I head over to her. My black heels sticking into the soft ground.
“I thought that was you.” She doesn’t look at me, as she looks up to the sunny sky. She’s in a black lace dress, with a matching black hat that is two sizes too big.
“Mom, I…” I stop. I don’t know what to say. I want to tell her Dad was dirty, that he wasn’t the man we thought he was, but I don’t want to break her heart more than it already is. Maybe her remembering him the way I thought he was wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
“Sit.” Her voice is sharp, her face serious. Pulling the glasses off her face, her makeup is perfect. It doesn’t even look like she’s been crying.
Turning to me her stone face breaks, turning into sympathy. “Don’t you waste your tears on him, baby.”
My heart stops. “What?” I mutter.
“I loved your daddy, and he loved you, but he was crooked as they come. Him being in that grave is probably the best for us both. To be honest, I expected this to happen a lot sooner than it did.”
I shake my head, a tear spilling from my eyes and slipping onto my lips.
“You knew?”
“Of course I knew. How could I not know?” she laughs.
“Well, I just found this out,” I state, feeling stupid for not knowing.
“Good, that means I did something right in raising you. I did everything I could to protect you from his side deals. One time he took money from a gang here in town, and I guess he didn’t go through with his side of the deal.” She narrows her brows at me. “They set our house on fire and we lost everything. If it weren’t for the department and Red Cross we’d have slept on the streets, Jillian.”
Oh, my God, I remember that fire. “You said it was an electrical fire.” I blink rapidly, remembering the flames licking up the side of the house as we set outside in our pajamas.
“Yeah, well, you were a kid.”
I rub at my forehead, I’m so stressed out. “Everything he taught me about being a cop.”
“Was out of the goodness of his heart, he didn’t want you like him. I do commend him for that.” She nods quickly, pointing at nothing in particular.
“I could have been killed as many times as I rode around with him.”
She bites at her cheek, looking away. “We fought about that regularly. I wanted him to retire, give you the reins so you could turn the department around. Your dad giving up control, that was the tricky part.”
“Doesn’t matter anymore, I’m not going to be able to do anything after they think I killed him.”
“I know you didn’t kill him, as soon as that came on the TV I knew his dealings finally caught up to him. I was worried sick trying to find you. Alessandra and I even printed out fliers,” she smiles, grabbing my hand. “I’ve hardly slept, nervous something had happened to you. The department wouldn’t return my phone calls, or tell me anything about your case. I prayed, and hoped in my soul that you would return unharmed.”
I smile, looking down. Not sure how and if now is the right time to reveal I’m with child.
“You alright, dear?” She brushes a hair behind my ear.
I shake my head, the urge to cry strong. Fuck these hormones. “I’m pregnant, Mom. It’s what kept me strong the whole time I was away.”
“What?” her voice is high, her body leaning in like maybe she didn’t hear me right.
“I’m pregnant.” I get straight to the point this time. Looking up at her, a big smile spreading across her face. She heard me that time.
“Oh, my!” She clasps her hands, and looks up at the sky. “I never thought I’d see the day!”
“Mom!” I chastise.
“Was it with that fella, the one with the big—”
“MOM!” My face reddens. We’re so going to Hell.
“Well, is it?”
“Yes, his name is Zevin, but everyone calls him Zeek.”
“Oh, you have to have him over for dinner. I want to meet him, with clothes on this time.”
She starts jumping in her spot, excited.
“He’s not what you think, Mom.” Here comes the news that is going to break her happiness, but I feel she needs to know who he is to fully accept him. I’m not going to tell her everything, of course, she doesn’t need to know Zeek killed her husband, but letting her know that Zeek is no choir boy might be a start.
She stills. “Is he good to you?”
I flinch, not sure where she’s going with this.
“Yes.”
“Do you think he’ll be a good dad?”
I nod. I’m sure of it.
“Then that’s all that matters. Bring him over, we’ll have my casserole you like so much.”
***
“DEPUTY MCADAMS, I’VE GONE over your statement and just wanted to confirm a few things?” Sergeant Chang pulls a chair out, and takes a seat. He’s got a potbelly, his head bald with little dark freckles all over it.
“Yes, of course.” My palms are sweaty, afraid they won’t believe me. Why would he, I’m a terrible liar.
“You said here that the Italian gangster who goes by the street name Cross, was the one who shot Lieutenant Oaks, correct?”
“Yes,” I respond surely, but my back is sweating like crazy, my fingers tingling as I lie through my teeth.
“Unfortunately we were not able to locate Cristoforo.” I don’t recognize the name. Noticing the confusion on my face he frowns. “That is his birth name, Cristoforo.”
“Oh, I didn’t know him as anything other than Cross,” I explain my confusion.
“Right, well, like I said, I have our men out looking for him, and a search warrant for his property. We’ll find him. It also helps that we received a call from police officer Alessandra Lucas who testified to your statement.”
“What?!”
His big eyebrows narrow. “Yeah, she explained that she was called to the scene that night, and didn’t see the shooter, but saw you clearly and you were not the one who pulled the trigger.” He bites his cheek. “Is that not accurate?” I swallow, my chest doing this tingly thing. Alessandra lied for me, and now I’m about to lie some more.
“No, no, it is,” I respond quickly. It’s official. I’m going to Hell.
“So, here is what we can do in the meantime. I can open an investigation, and if it turns out Cross did kill Lieutenant Oaks like you so clearly believe, and the results from your polygraph are clean, then you’re cleared and will be back in the department.”
I wring my fingers together tightly. “Yes, of course.”
“If not, I’d stay in town, deputy.” My heart just fell out of my chest.
He pulls the papers up, tapping them against the table and holds his hand out, shaking mine firmly.
Leaving the interrogation room I smile, act friendly and happy to see everyone, and leave the department. As soon as I get in my Jeep, my tongue becomes too thick, my gag reflex pulsing to the point acid fills my mouth. I grab a fast food bag, and vomit in it. Only this sickness isn’t from the baby, it’s from being dirty. Turning on my code of blue to save my family.
Now I’m the outlaw.