It’s okay to come out of the shadows when you’re protecting what’s right. My mother taught me that the night she was murdered, and although I couldn’t save her from my father, I have every intention of saving myself from the misery he forever instills in everyone he meets.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
Jae
Ispin away from JR so he can’t see my lips before growling through clenched teeth. “Having a hearing impediment doesn’t mean you’re an idiot, so stop treating him as if he is one.”
The processing officer acts as if I didn’t speak while lodging JR’s fingerprints into the federal database. The fact they don’t already have his details exposes that he isn’t the monster they think he is. He was raised by a horrible man with unjust punishments and misguided morals, yet this is the first conviction JR has faced in his thirty-two years.
Alex was right when he said this went higher than him. The chain stretches so far, even with Isaac reaching out to contacts in this area, he had a hard time finding the U-bolt holding JR hostage.
Mercifully, he did, and now JR is being processed for a late afternoon bail session. I don’t know what I’ll do if his request for bail isn’t approved. It took a heap of favors to get things moving, so I’d hate to think what Isaac had to offer to have Cedric’s interview switched from being a witness statement to an interrogation of a perpetrator.
The Bureau wrongly believed he was their latest golden boy.
It was only after Alex did a heap of digging did they realize how wrong they were. I’m not surprised. Surgeons are automatically given a prestigious notoriety from society, but when money comes into play, all bets are off.
Although I’m quickly learning I hardly knew a thing about Cedric, I guarantee you that is whatallthis is about. He doesn’t do anything without a fee associated with it. That’s why he never worked at any of the medical clinics I attend once a month in the communities dotted around Ravenshoe. He said he paid to learn his skills, so people should pay to utilize them.
He doesn’t have a single compassionate bone in his body, and it’s proven without a doubt when he responds to my snarl during his escort from an interview room to a holding cell. “Depends on who you’re asking. From what I’ve heard, you were useless for the weeks you were deaf.” I want to smack the arrogance off his face when he mimics the voice of a hearing-impaired person when they first learn to speak. “They wouldn’t even let you stitch up a patient, much less operate on them.”
“Let the man run his mouth,” Regan suggests while grabbing my arm to ensure her suggestion is enforced. “From what I heard, today might be the last time it isn’t filled with an inmate’s johnson.”
She says her last sentence loud enough for Cedric to hear. He isn’t being held in custody solely for his alleged involvement in my accident and subsequent hunt, but also for tax fraud, malpractice, and even more concerning, the sale of organs on the black market.
Isaac’s contact high in the Bureau held nothing back when he reached out to him for any information he had on Cedric and his family. He’s been wanting to take him down from the moment he rocked up at Ravenshoe Private acting like he owned the place.
I thought his dislike was from two alpha males clashing.
I learned otherwise quick smart.
After watching Cedric being led into a holding cell, Regan shifts on her feet to face me. “We have a bit of a dilemma.”
“Isaac?” I query, panicked his tussle with Cedric has gotten him in trouble with the law.
Regan shakes her head. “No. He’s fine.” She drags her eyes to the end of the corridor. When I follow the direction of her gaze, I find Isaac standing at the end, talking into his cell phone. “If not a little gluttonous with his gloating.” After returning her focus to me, she adjusts the collar of my shirt and straightens my skirt like she personally selected it from my wardrobe for me to wear. “The judge assigned is a friend of a friend. He’s strict but understanding that not everything on paper is as it seems.”
“Which is good for JR…” I say, pushing her along. I hate suspense. If I read a novel, I’m one of those annoying readers who flick to the last page to make sure everything ends okay before I start reading it.
“Yes…” I breathe a little easier until she tacks on, “…andno. He can’t be bought, which means the bail hearing is marked in his calendar as a murder hearing.” She stares me straight in the face while saying, “They are rarely granted bail.”
“But since it was in self-defense, the charge should be lesser, right?”
Regan shakes her head. “Self-defense can’t be argued when there’s no body.”
I stare at her in utter shock. “What?”
“The man he is accused of murdering has been missing for seven years…” Regan once again straightens my collar, a bad habit of hers when she’s nervous. “… but a body was never recovered.” Hope fills me long before dread, but Regan is quick to shut it down, “Authorities believe CJ may have hidden his body somewhere in the woods.”
“JR,” I correct her, too shocked to tackle the big flaw in her reply. “He likes to go by JR.” I take a breather before pushing out, “He also loves those woods. They’re his home, so he wouldn’t desecrate the land like that by burying someone there.”
Regan breathes heavily out of her nose before suggesting, “There is a way we could find out.” I know what she’s going to ask before she can articulate it. She wants me to convince JR to lead us to his victim.
I shake my head so fast, even if JR can’t hear the whooshes, he’ll feel them. “I can’t do that. If there’s a body...” I stop talking, my heart to shatter by the prospect he killed a man to continue as normal. It’s been living in denial ever since he confessed. I said days ago that JR confuses protectiveness as possessiveness, so who’s to say he didn’t make the same mistake a year ago?
“Not if it was self-defense as claimed. We have the report you lodged years ago arguing against the coroner’s findings of Cecil’s death. If we can prove it wasn’t suicide, and JR, who was in fear for his life, respondedsolelyto protect himself, he won’t face a single hour behind bars.” When I remain hesitant, Regan adds, “This is what he wants, Jae. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have made this.”
My heart beats in an unfamiliar pattern when she plays a video currently going viral across multiple social media platforms. JR is standing front and center on the screen. His hair and beard are back to their original bushy state, and he’s clutching the shirt he plucked from the floor when he left me in the shower stall for almost two hours.
