Witch Hunt(8)

Instead, I called Suzy. I was ticked off when she was at her desk to answer it. I’d been imagining her leading the cavalry to come and save me, riding in on her metaphoric white horse, and instead she was in our damn cubicle.
“Cèsar. It’s you.” Her tone didn’t inspire confidence.
I took a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure Kearney wasn’t on my ass. She was at the nearby desk filling out paperwork. Ramirez was watching me, eyes wary, patiently watchful, but too distant to hear a whisper.
I twisted my wrists, trying to get comfortable with the phone. My wrists were cuffed again and I was getting real sick of it. “What’s going on, Suzy? Why am I still here?”
It took her a long time to answer.
“I’m sorry, Cèsar.”
My heart sank all the way down to my sneakers. Her tone was enough to tell me that the OPA wasn’t coming. No men in black to make me disappear. Nobody to say that I was innocent, this had all been a misunderstanding, their files were forfeit.
“Do you have guys at my apartment? Are they investigating?”
“Yeah. We’ve gotten involved, but the union     is handling the investigation.”
Bad sign. union     procedure was a secret, even to me, but they only got called in when the shit had hit the fan more than usual. “And?”
A sigh. “It looks bad. Real bad.”
“You know I didn’t do this, Suzy.”
“It doesn’t matter what I know. It matters what everyone else thinks. Look, I can hook you up with my lawyer. He’s a good guy. He’s done criminal law before, and if anyone can get you out of there on bail—”
“I don’t need a fucking lawyer!”
That part I’d said too loud. Kearney was staring at me. Ramirez was moving in.
“I’m sorry, Cèsar,” Suzy said again. I was real sick of hearing those words. I didn’t think I could hear them again without losing it.
The police station was so loud, so crowded. I was trapped in a sea of desks and concrete walls. Erin was still reaching for me with her cracked manicure, gazing at my ceiling with a look of postmortem horror, and I could smell that meaty scent of blood.
I didn’t even feel it when Ramirez took the phone from me and hung it up.
The Office of Preternatural Affairs thought I was guilty and they were shaking me loose before I dragged them down with me.
I was on my own.



The holding cell was a temporary thing. Wouldn’t be long at all before I got face time in front of a judge and found myself in real deep shit—an actual jail, not a room with bars in the back of a police station.
I still wasn’t worried about being found guilty. I hadn’t killed Erin and the evidence would prove it. It wasn’t my Glock on the table—it wouldn’t even have my fingerprints on it. Plus, there were security cameras around the apartment complex.
We would find out that someone had come home with us. It would prove that I had struggled with the attacker, making the wreckage in my living room and kitchen. And then they would be able to prove that the attacker had knocked me out and shot Erin.
It was the only story that made sense. The only possible explanation.
But they would determine all of that after I’d been in jail for months. After I’d had a lawyer assigned to me and been dragged over the coals in a long trial.
By that time, my life would already be ruined. The killer long gone.
It wouldn’t be any justice for Erin.
No, I wasn’t going on trial. I wasn’t following the Bloody Douchebag Gang into prison. It wasn’t happening.
Someone had messed with Erin—had messed with me—and I was going to find out who.
That was the decision I’d come to after five minutes of pacing in the holding cell. It only took a split second after that to decide how I’d escape.
You see, I’d been able to escape this whole time. But Suzy had asked me to cooperate, so I had been cooperating. Why not? Someone had been going to save me anyway.
But since the OPA thought I was guilty too, there was no point in sticking around. There was only one person that could prove my innocence, and that guy was me. I wouldn’t be able to do it if I was stuck behind bars.
I climbed up on the bench. It had been bolted to the wall so that it couldn’t be used as a weapon. It wasn’t directly below the narrow barred window, but it was only a foot or two to the right, and I could reach it. I had long arms. And not just long—but muscular.#p#分页标题#e#
Three days a week at the gym hadn’t built me up like a bear. I mostly went to do the cardio machines. A few hours on the treadmill to help make sure that I could catch a suspect on foot.
What had given me these insane shoulders were the foul-tasting poultices that I chewed every morning, the potions brewed on my stovetop in Walmart cookware, and the charms I kept hidden in my gun safe.