Page 51 of The Kings of Kearny

Jakob shook his head. Good call. Wouldn’t want to press his luck and get grounded.

Katherine turned back to me. “You and the guard were alone in the elevator. Unless there were cameras in there, there’s no way either of you can prove your sides of the story. Without witnesses, anything you say will be hearsay. The bad news is that without the cameras, he can accuse you of assault and file either a civil or criminal lawsuit against you. If it’s civil, he’ll want you to pay for damages. Criminal, and you could be facing jail time.”

I nodded, my amusement evaporating. Please let there be cameras in the elevator. If I had to go to jail for defending myself against a gang member posing as a guard, I would lose what little faith I had left in the justice system.

Katherine laid a hand on my arm and sent me a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry. We can probably avoid a criminal charge. There isn’t much evidence for the police to pass to the district attorney, and without substantial proof that you just attacked him out of the blue, the DA won’t want to pursue it.”

I breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. “Okay.”

She looked me over. “Good outfit choice. Exaggerate your limp when we walk in. We want you to appear as helpless as possible.”

She’d advised me to change before leaving my apartment. I’d stripped my bloody jeans off, and following her instructions on how to destroy the evidence, Jakob and I soaked them in bleach and dropped them in a random dumpster a few miles away from my apartment complex.

Katherine had placed a lot of emphasis on appearing as wholesome and vulnerable as possible. I wore a bright yellow sundress with a white cardigan over it. This wasn’t my first rodeo with assault charges—I’d taken part in a couple of highly regrettable drunken bar brawls while still in the military—and I knew that looking helpless was a good way to make people question whether or not I was capable of doing what I’d been accused of.

The hem of the dress hit me just above my knees, leaving the worst of my scars visible. Usually I stuck to jeans and long dresses or skirts. It’s not that I was embarrassed or ashamed of my body; I just didn’t want to deal with the million and one questions I received every time my scars were on display. Most of the people who asked me about them in the past were well-meaning, and I understood the curiosity, but it got old. Now wasn’t a time to hide my scars. I would walk into this police station, exaggerate my limp, and hope to God that everyone who saw them took pity on me.

Was it low? Manipulative? You betcha. I had no regrets if it got me off the hook for criminal assault.

Katherine checked her watch. “If they’ve already filed charges, we’re going to counterfile and then petition for them to open an investigation into your apartment. Did you take pictures?”

I nodded and dug my phone out to show her the damage.

She let out a low whistle as she flipped through the images. “You’re staying with Jakob’s parents, right?”

“I am,” I said.

She glanced up from my phone, looking between Jakob and me. “I’d advise you two to stick together over the coming days. If someone was this violent with Krista’s belongings, I don’t want to think of what they’d do if they got their hands on her.”

Despite the sweltering heat of the day, a cold shiver ran through me.

Jakob saw it and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “I won’t let her out of my sight.”

“You better not,” Katherine said, handing me my phone. “I’ll need Raúl’s contact information. It’s good we have a witness to this. You get attacked in an elevator and then go home to a trashed apartment? That would look bad even to a blind cop. The fact that Brad covered it up works in our favor. It shows conspiracy to commit a crime.”

The more she talked, the more I understood why Liam Larson kept her on his payroll. She was intelligent, competent, and seemingly unshakable. We spoke for several more minutes before saying goodbye to Jakob and walking into the building.

The front door spat us out into a small rectangular room. There were more doors to our left and right. Neither of them had handles. Dead ahead, a uniformed policewoman manned a front desk on the other side of a plexiglass barrier that was thick enough to be bulletproof. Katherine introduced us. Afterward, the policewoman asked us to fill out some paperwork and then buzzed us in. One of the side doors clicked open. Another cop met us at it and led us down a linoleum-lined hallway, deeper into the building. I looked around as we walked. It had been a while since I’d been inside a police station. The last time was in high school when I got called in to answer some questions about the possible whereabouts of my parents.

This station was bigger than the one back home. We passed a records department, a waiting room, several interrogation rooms, a lounge, and a large briefing room before being led through a door in the back. It opened into a wide office space crammed full of desks. Half of them were unoccupied. The others were manned by police officers in uniform and detectives in plain clothes. Civilians sat in uncomfortable-looking chairs facing some of the desks. One or two of them wore handcuffs while others looked to be filing complaints or answering questions.

My gaze wandered to the far corner of the room where I caught a semifamiliar face through the crowd. I frowned, struggling to place the man, and suddenly it clicked. It was the guy Jakob stared down at Magnolia Hills, the one who passed through the entrance hall while we waited to check in.

He must have felt me staring because he turned a little in his chair, and his dark eyes met mine across the room. I nearly missed a step. There was an intensity there, and despite the fact that his expression was damn near unreadable, his eyes told me more than I needed to know. I’d met enough bad men and women in my life to see the signs. Hell, I was a killer myself, but despite how fucked up I was, my eyes still had life in them. His were the eyes of a dead man, a walking husk whose soul had been shredded a long time ago. My reptilian brain recognized it right away. The second I locked eyes with him, it started hissing at me to put more space between us, and not even the fact that we were in a room full of cops with thirty feet between us was enough to shut her up.

I’d always had an expressive face, and he must have read something of my thoughts on it because he smiled. I jerked my gaze away and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. That was the kind of smile you gave someone right before you killed them.

Guess I knew who was filing the complaints against me.

I didn’t like this coincidence. Jakob homed in on this guy like he knew him, and now here he was, trying to get Jakob’s “old lady” charged with assaulting a fake guard. I’d thought he could be a doctor at first, but Officer Sanders said it was management making the complaint. If he was management, there was no way he didn’t know that guard was fake. Had I just laid eyes on the mastermind behind the whole operation?

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I had. Everything fit. Who else but management could have inserted fake guards into Magnolia? Who else had the power to cover up what was happening there? Who else would be so angry at me for busting up their little drug operation that they looked like they wanted to murder me?

Katherine noticed my distraction. She leaned in as we walked. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

There were too many sets of ears around us, and I didn’t feel safe saying anything about my suspicions. We fell quiet again and followed the cop to a desk pressed right up against the back wall.

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