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Nothing can absolve me, and now that my perpetual anger has left me, I feel cold and dead inside. So it is fair, I guess, that I’m here. Retribution. Karma. Whatever you wanna call it. It finally turned around and bit me in the ass. Here I thought regret and penance would be enough to get me off the hook. That the happiness I felt was real and solid.
But it seems to be drifting through my fucking fingers like smoke, vanishing away.
Alone. When did I end up so damn alone? Luna doesn’t believe I’m innocent, my half-siblings are in St. Louis—though why would they come to my aid? After the way I treated them.
The answer is, of course, that I’ve always been alone. Even with Dad. Even with my gang at school. I hadn’t realized until recently, until Luna, just how much.
Shut in a jail cell with some other drunks and miscreants, I sink down to the floor and rub the back of my neck, waiting for my fate. My mouth is so dry my lips are cracking, and my stomach is a tight knot of pain. I’m thirsty, but not hungry. Couldn’t stomach anything right now. I could use a stiff drink, but if I started drinking now... I may never stop.
Hope is a fucking bitch. I wish I’d never trusted it.
***
It seems I’ve dozed off, my chin resting on my chest, a painful crick in my neck. One of the drunks is laughing low somewhere to my right, a hollow sound, and there are raised voices outside the cell.
“He has confessed!” Someone is all but yelling. “It’s done.”
“Bullshit. I want to see the recording.”
“What for? You know as well as I do Jones did it.”
I grunt, rolling my neck, wondering who’s talking. The voices are familiar. Is one of them the sheriff?
“You have to prove it, Sheriff. Just because you believe it doesn’t make it true.”
Ah. Bingo.
“There’s plenty of evidence. The footage from the security cameras, the witnesses, the pendant—”
“His face doesn’t appear on the cameras, does it?”
“Now you’re nitpicking. Do you know Ross Jones personally?”
“As much as I know most people around these parts.”
“Well, then you know that he deserves to be behind bars. Should be. He’s following in his father’s footsteps. I remember Jasper Jones when he was young. The girls loved him. He had his gang, later joined an MC. Bad to the marrow of his bones. A troubled young man, from a problematic family. Ring any bells? See the similarities?”
“God’s sake, sheriff, you can’t imprison Ross because he started out as his dad. What about individuality of character, what about circumstances and free will?”
“He has no alibi, Detective. I’m sorry.”
Detective? Could it be John Elba?
I rub at the grit in my eyes and sit up, fully alert for the first time in what feels like days.
“This is personal, isn’t it, sheriff? You’ve been longing to put Ross away since he was a kid. End the Jones line. Stop what you see as an inevitable downfall. Ross Jones is no saint, granted, no angel. I’ve been watching him since he was young. But he’s no criminal, either.”
“Detective. Fact is, the boy confessed.”
“And confession under duress isn’t valid.”
“Under duress? Now you’re out of line, Detective. You accusing us of not doing our job properly? Unless you have proof of his innocence, I suggest you leave.”
“This isn’t your jurisdiction, sheriff.”
“But it is.”
“We’ll see about that.”
