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As the senator’s campaign manager, and alibi, he made sure the senator was found innocent when the jury believed him. However, Davis was lying. I knew it that day as surely as I knew my own name. Which is why I visited him privately in the middle of the night.
It’s amazing what people will admit to when you put a gun to their head.
“Tell me what I want to know, and I won’t blow your fucking brains out,” I say. I press the nozzle of the gun into the man’s temple, and he flinches, his tears falling faster, mixing with the sweat trailing down his face. Davis mumbles something unintelligible, and my mouth thins behind my mask. “This isn’t going to work if I can't understand you.”
“Before he left, the senator was with me that night,” Davis says, his voice quaking like his entire body. The tremors snake along my fingers where I grip him by the throat with his back facing me. “I swear on my mother’s life.”
“What about the daughter?”
“He was with Calista like she said. Her testimony was truthful. She was baking in the kitchen at the shelter where she volunteers every week. For some reason, she felt sick and passed out. When she came to, she called her father for help. That’s where he was at the time of Kristen’s murder.” Davis releases a sob. “That’s all I know.”
I scrub my jaw and blow out a breath. “Calista fucking Green.”
The vision of her races to the forefront of my mind, providing an image of the woman who haunts me every minute of every day. She was beautiful on the stand, a constant distraction that I couldn’t master, regardless of my efforts. As much as I hated to admit it, her testimony as an alibi also fucked me.
I scroll further down the document, my eyes absorbing the words at a rapid pace. The information in front of me is nothing I haven’t already come across. My exhale is loud in the quiet, but disappointment screams within me, demanding answers.
There are none.
However, there’s an image nestled within the file. Although I doubt the questions in my mind can be satisfied by a mere picture, I click on the icon, unable to stifle my curiosity.
Miss Green’s beautiful face fills the screen. In it, she gazes straight at the camera, her expression defeated and vulnerable. However, it’s her eyes that cause a pang to streak through my chest. The hazel within is lackluster and haunted. The ember within carries none of the light or fire that I’m used to seeing. There is one emotion present: stark terror.
My gaze drifts over her features as I search for clues for her stricken expression. The bruises on her throat have the hairs on the back of my neck rising. Splotches of blue and purple are spread across her delicate skin, nature’s temporary tattoos.
Put there by a man’s hands.
Ideas begin to take shape. Pressure builds inside my head as my thoughts trample each other, trying to make sense of what this means. The meta data on the image puts the date and time on the night of Ms. Hall’s murder. Senator Green’s hand, discernible by the Ivy League class ring on his ring finger, was the one holding Calista’s hair back so the bruises could be visible in the photo. Hewaswith his daughter that evening, documenting everything. What happened?
Miss Green is definitely keeping secrets.
This raises more questions: who’s the motherfucker that attacked her? Andwhy?
My intuition nagged at me all throughout the trial, bringing my focus to Miss Green again and again. I’d thought it was due to the fact she was fucking gorgeous. Now I know it’s because there’s more to her story than she told in court.
If her alibi was real, then I killed an innocent man.
“Fucking damn it!”
I reach for the tumbler, my fingers trembling with my rage, right before I hurl it across the room. The high-pitched sound of the glass shattering and the shards hitting the floor barely penetrate my consciousness. How can it when my soul is twisting with the injustice I committed? My moral code is one of the few things I value, and I fucked it up.
I only have myself to blame.
After pulling my cell phone from my pocket, I call the hacker on my payroll, who picks up on the second ring. “Yo, boss man. What can I do for you?” Zack asks.
“I need you to look into something for me. Calista Green might’ve been taken to a hospital on June 24th, and I want to know why and for how long.”
“Sure thing. You want me to call you back?”
“I’ll hold.”
The sound of Zack’s fingers striking the keyboard has me gritting my teeth. Patience is something I’ve exercised every day of my life, but for some reason it eludes me in this moment. Perhaps it’s the foreboding that looms at the edges of my psyche. Or maybe I’m a paranoid fuck.
Whatever the reason, my rage is barely contained.
“Anything yet?”
“No,” Zack says, sounding distracted. “You’re not going to believe this, but I can’t find anything.”
