Ain't Your Bitch (Interracial Urban Erotica)(175)

She took a deep breath. There was one question that had been in the back  of her mind, and now it came forward again. Why all the specifics?  There was something fetishistic to the murders. Seven, exactly seven.  Why exactly seven? Nobody knew.

Well, this was a confession. Stabbed seven times. It felt good. Blood on  my hands. Most of all, a young woman. Jamelia had trouble believing  that there was anything that would make the guy who she'd shot describe  her or her sister as 'young' women.

They were the same age. If anything, Ryan looked a year or two younger  than them. They weren't young to him. This person had described her as a  'young' woman, sometimes even as a 'girl.'

Which raised more difficult questions about who had written this diary. This journal. This confession. Confession to a murder.

Without knowing more, she couldn't begin to look into the murders. Not  effectively, anyways. She took a deep breath. That meant taking this in  to the station, and that meant having to see Roy. Schafer was head on  this investigation. Taking it somewhere else would have been an insult,  and as much as she wanted a clean break, she respected him as a cop.

She wanted to stop feeling anything for him-not to insult him in front  of his coworkers. So she was going back into the lion's den again, after  all. It took her a minute before she felt ready, then she dressed in  professional clothing, slipped her wallet into her trousers pocket, and  started off.

It took her exactly ten minutes and twenty-eight seconds to get there,  though she wasn't timing it and didn't know. But for those six-hundred  twenty-eight seconds, she was feeling exactly how long the trip was.  Every one of those seconds, she thought about how much she didn't want  to go inside that station.

She ignored that tugging, the same way that she was ignoring the  niggling feeling that she should apologize and beg for Roy's  forgiveness. The feeling that he was all she had left. Maybe he was all  she had left, or maybe he wasn't, but that didn't define her. He was a  colleague, and he was a man she'd spent some good times with, but he  wasn't the end of the line for her, and it wasn't going to underscore  her whole career.

Jamelia made it through the door moving fast enough that she could  ignore her doubts. As long as she kept up her forward momentum, it  didn't matter that she wasn't one damn bit certain if what she was doing  was going to help or if she was being played like a damn fiddle.

The elevator opened with a ding and Detective Green turned. His desk was  right by the elevator and he had a bad habit of looking to see every  time someone came up. It was a distraction.

"I thought you were out of here for a while."

"I am," she answered, already moving towards Schafer's office.

"If you're looking for Agent Schafer, he's gone."

"Gone?"

"Out."

"Out where?"

"Out of here."

Oh. Jamelia swallowed hard and tried to think. He needed to see this, and if he was gone …

She turned and headed for the door. If she hurried, she could make  L.A.X. before they departed, she hoped. It burned her ass, but she  pulled out her phone as she slipped back into the Jeep and dialed Roy's  number.

It rang twice before going to voicemail. She called again. No rings this time. He'd turned the phone off.

She might have done the same thing in his position, but now it was God  damned important that she got in touch with him before he left the  ground. Why did he have to pick right now to be a hurt child? Why had  she picked that exact moment to piss him off?

She put her foot down harder. How long had he been gone for? An hour? Two?

A question hit her. Why would they leave? Had there been something new? Had they been pulled out?

At some point, sure. They'd go back to Quantico. But there had been a  murder here less than twenty-four hours ago. They'd just arrested a  suspect in the murder, but that left at least one more. Likely two.         

     



 

Without being able to reach Schafer, she couldn't begin to guess what  the hell had happened, and nobody in the station would want to tell her  about it, even if they knew. After all, she was on leave. She wasn't  involved in the case in any official way, and that was how it had always  been. Why would it be any different now that Schafer and his suits had  left?

She took a breath. She needed information, and she needed to cooperate  with the F.B.I. to get it. How was she supposed to do that?

The thought occurred to her a minute after it came through. The field  office might at least be able to hand information like the page in her  hand. If it looked useful, they could at least get in touch with Schafer  or one of his boys. Maybe before they took off, or maybe they would be  able to head back.

She turned the Jeep around and got back on the gas. She didn't know  where the F.B.I. field office was in California, but it couldn't be too  far. She jabbed it into the G.P.S. while she drove, and started  following the directions. It took five minutes to get there, another  minute to find parking, and a seventh to get inside.

"I need to speak to someone."

"May I ask you what this is regarding?" The man behind the counter  looked like a kindergarten teacher more than a law-enforcement agent.  Thin and bookish and retreating.

"I've been given evidence in an ongoing murder investigation."

The man nodded to himself, clicked his mouse a few times and tapped a few keys. "Can I have the details?"

"I need to get in touch with Special Agent Roy Schafer. It's with regards to a series of murders committed across the country."

"What's your evidence?"

"A confession. Someone slipped it under the door of my hotel room."

"May I have your name?"

"Jamelia. E-R-I-N. Russo. R-U-S-S-O."

"Can you give me the paper?"

"What? Uh." She'd been building up the moment that they were forced to  see each other again. The moment she handed him the paper. It was one  last chance to make her apology in the end. It should have occurred to  her that the office would want to take custody of any evidence involved  in an ongoing investigation. "Sure."

She handed it across. The man smiled and set it aside, got on an  intercom and asked someone to come take it into evidence, along with her  transcription. Then he tapped another few keys, looked up at her as if  he was surprised to see her standing there.

"Thank you very much." She let out a breath. "We'll be in touch if we need to reach you."

Thank you very much, indeed.





Thirty-Two



Jamelia's phone rang, waking her from the catnap she hadn't quite  stopped taking for the past several hours. What was the point of not  resting? She had nowhere to be. Still suspended. She'd probably remain  on paid suspension until Internal Affairs finished looking into the  shooting.

It was Roy.

"Russo."

"Jamelia, I'm so sorry."

She didn't like that. She'd been the one being a bitch, not him. He  hadn't done anything wrong. Which meant that as much as she didn't want  to think it, he wasn't that kind of sorry. Not the kind of 'please  forgive me' sorry, anyways. He was the kind of sorry that people are  when you find out you've got cancer, or when you find out someone's  house burned down.

"What happened?"

"I've got a guy coming over with plane tickets right now, on the Bureau."

"Tell me what happened, Schafer, or I'm not going anywhere."

"It's about your father."

"Dad? What about him?"

"I think it would be more appropriate to do this in person."

"No, you'll tell me now."

"It's our guy. He got your father."

"What?"

"Your father's dead."

She didn't expect the news to hurt the way it did. She'd spent the last  ten years hating him, and that was after a slow buildup of bitterness  that had begun almost as soon as they reached the west coast. It was  inevitable that he was going to leave them as soon as he set foot on  California soil and crinkled up his face at the smell. Everything after  that had been …  denouement.

But it still hit her. She was thankful for having answered the phone in  bed. Her body slumped down further into the corner where the mattress  met the headboard.

"You're sure it's him?"

"It fits, as much as it can. Seven wounds. But, uh …  it's ugly."

"What is that supposed to mean? They're all ugly, Roy."

"Look, the details aren't important. Just take the plane tickets from  Agent Creed, and I'll see you in a little while. And Jamelia?"

"What?"

"Pack for cold."

She said goodbye and hung up the phone, then rubbed her face to get the  last bits of sleepiness out. She grabbed her suitcase and dumped it out  on the hotel room floor. She'd need to get back to the apartment before  she could leave, but she had to wait for this F.B.I. guy to get here  with the tickets.

A knock came at the door, and she opened it automatically, not bothering  to look at the guy. She had unpacked just enough that it was going to  be a hassle. She heard him step inside behind her as she grabbed her  shampoo off the rack.