Page 3 of Endangered Species
Webster was stunned into silence. He’d heard the expression about the world crashing down around him, but, for the first time, he finally understood the experience. His chest tightened, and, for a minute, he wondered if he was having a heart attack or an anxiety attack. He was hoping for the former. It would be over much quicker. “Can they do that? Can they send me to a federal facility when I haven’t even been convicted yet?” The question was mumbled almost under his breath, his brain having checked out of the conversation.
“They’re blaming overcrowding in the jails, but it sounds like bullshit to me,” Chao said. “Honestly, if you’re being framed, you pissed off somebody pretty high up on the food chain.”
“It’s not a coincidence,” Webster said, brow furrowed in concentration. “It can’t be.”
“What isn’t, Nicky?” Linc asked. “I appreciate yourBeautiful Mindmoments as much as anybody, but I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s happening.”
“My brother.”
“You have a brother?” Linc asked.
“Not really, no. My mom married his dad. They were only married for a year before…” Webster trailed off. “That’s not important. What’s important is that my stepbrother, Cyrus, is housed at CSD. He’s been there for a very long time.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Linc asked.
Chao was doodling on her legal pad, but Webster had no doubt she heard every word he said.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence they want to send me to the same federal facility as my long lost stepbrother.”
“Why would they want you with family?” Linc asked.
“Because they clearly don’t want me out of the way. They want me dead.”
Linc leaned forward, his voice a sandpaper whisper. “Why would your stepbrother want you dead?”
“Because I’m the one who put him away for twenty-five years,” Webster said, his chest tight.
“Jesus,” Chao muttered.
Webster ignored her, thinking of flashes of honeyed eyes and the look of betrayal as they led Cy from the courthouse in his black pants and white button down shirt. The same clothes Cy had worn to his father’s funeral. It had been so long.
“It’s already done, even if you don’t take the deal. They denied bail. They’ll send you there until sentencing,” Ms. Chao said, her tone clipped, like she had somewhere else she’d rather be.
Part of Webster wanted to go. It seemed almost fitting. If he was going to get slaughtered by somebody, maybe it was some kind of poetic justice that it was Cyrus who wielded the weapon. What did he look like now? Would he still call Webster Nicky? Webster shook his head at the name. Nobody called him that anymore. Nobody except Linc.
“If they send me there, I’ll never make it to sentencing,” Webster promised.
“If they’re setting you up, there has to be a reason. What were you doing on vacation last week? Did you run into anybody? Did you flirt with the wrong person? Did you accidentally dent a judge’s jag? Call out the wrong senator on a social media post?”
“No.” Webster scrubbed his hands over his face, his head feeling like it was cracking in two. “This has to do with Cy. Somehow.”
“How do you know that?” Chao asked. “Did you remember something?”
“Look, there’s only one thing I’ve been working on, and it’s the same case I’ve been working on for the last twenty-years. Cy’s. All I did last week was create a program that looked for patterns in random data, and I fed Cy’s case details into the program.”
If possible, Linc frowned harder. “Why? What were you looking for?”
Webster sat back. “The same thing I’ve been looking for since he was put away. A way to prove his innocence.”
Chao was suddenly interested in the conversation once more. “Your testimony put your brother away, but you think he’s innocent?”
“I know he’s innocent,” Webster snapped, the pain in his head becoming almost unbearable.
“How?” Linc shouted. “We need to know what you know so we can help you.”
“I’m doing my best here, Linc. I’m not trying to be cagey. I just can’t think straight.” He dug his palms into his eyes, sighing as the lights overhead were blotted out, leaving only the sparks dancing behind his eyelids. “I was forced to testify against him. I tried to tell the truth, but it was a kangaroo court. The whole thing was a joke. Nobody cared about the truth. They just wanted Cy convicted. Everybody in that town knew who killed my stepfather, but they also knew they’d never get a conviction.”
“Who killed him?” Chao asked, her voice taking on an almost gossipy tone.
