Things We Do in the Dark(84)
She stared at her new ID. Paris. It didn’t suit her at all. But like Chaz said, she’d have to make it work.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t thank me,” he said. “You paid way too much for this. The street value of that coke is around a hundred grand. A fake ID would have cost you a couple thousand at most.”
They both stood up. She reached for him and pressed her face into his chest, allowing herself the comfort of his arms around her one last time. His heart was pounding. You wouldn’t know it from the outside.
He kissed the top of her head. “I almost said I’ll see you around sometime, but I won’t, will I?”
“No.” Her voice was muffled.
“Take care of yourself, Joey.” Chaz held her a moment longer, and then he was gone.
An hour later, she stopped by the front desk to drop off the key. The same clerk was there, and just like he’d never asked her to sign anything when she checked in, there was nothing to do now that she was leaving. “Bobcaygeon” by the Hip was playing once again.
“Good luck,” he said.
“For what?” she asked.
“For whatever it is you’re running from.”
Not running from, she thought, as she caught a taxi outside the motel. Running to.
She was Paris now.
PART FOUR
Don’t think I haven’t been through the same predicament
—LAURYN HILL
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Paris is slowly getting used to her lawyer’s attack-style way of speaking, but Sonny Everly’s best quality is that he never tells her anything other than the truth. Elsie was right that the man is an absolute prick, but at least he’s Paris’s prick.
They still don’t have a trial date, and according to Sonny, it could be a year or more.
“A case this high profile, the prosecutor is in no rush,” Sonny says, packing up his briefcase. “They can’t afford to be sloppy.”
“Can’t we ask for a speedy trial?” she asks as she walks him to the door. “I don’t want be in limbo for a year.”
“So you want to get to prison faster?” Sonny says. “You don’t want a speedy trial, not with your situation. Anything can happen, and we can’t afford to be sloppy, either. In the meantime, go back to work. Have your friends over. Meditate. Get your nails done. Do whatever it is women like you do.”
“Women like me?” Paris sighs. “Every time I think I might actually like you, Sonny, you remind me why I don’t.”
He grins. “You’ll love me when you’re free. Trust me, okay? This ain’t my first rodeo.”
It ain’t Paris’s, either.
As soon as he opens the door, one of the photographers hanging around the house shouts out a question. “Hey Sonny! How does it feel to represent the woman who murdered the Prince of Poughkeepsie?”
“Don’t you cockroaches have anything better to do?” she hears her lawyer snap as he gets into his BMW. “Fuck off.”
In fairness, the photographers actually might not have anything better to do. Paris can relate. She didn’t realize how few friends she had until all this happened. Most of her social circle—if it could even be called that—had been Jimmy’s social circle, and other than Elsie, none of them have checked in.
Even Henry is keeping his distance now that he’s running the studio solo. She tried to go back to Ocean Breath to teach her six a.m. Sunrise Hatha class, but a crowd of gawkers had waited outside the front doors all morning. It had scared off the members and upset the other instructors.
Everywhere she went, photographers followed.
“Honey, I’m sorry,” Henry told her. “But as your partner, I have to tell you that you’re bad for business.”
Paris has never not worked, not since she finished high school, and she isn’t used to sitting around all day. At the moment, books and TV are her only companions. Interestingly, she isn’t overly concerned about Ruby at the moment. Paris being charged with Jimmy’s murder is actually helpful when it comes to her mother, because if she’s convicted, she’ll have no money to pay the blackmail. It’s in Ruby’s best interest that Paris is acquitted. As much as her mother might genuinely enjoy ruining Paris’s life by exposing the truth about Mae, ultimately, Ruby cares about herself more. And if there’s any hope of getting her money, Ruby will wait.
It feels like she’s watched everything on Netflix, Hulu, and Prime, so Paris switches to Quan, looking for anything different to take her mind off things. Under the category “TV Shows We Picked For You,” she sees The Prince of Poughkeepsie, and smiles. They have all ten seasons, which was part of the deal Jimmy made with them. She keeps scrolling, and then stops when she sees they’ve added a new show.
Except it’s not new. Just like its counterparts Dateline and 20/20, Murderers has been around a long time. It used to air back when she was in high school, and there’s obviously no shortage of killers, because they’re still making new episodes today. Each hour-long installment is a dramatic reenactment of a real-life murder case, and eight seasons of the thirty-year-old show are now streaming on Quan.
Paris has watched Murderers exactly once. Surely they won’t have the Ruby Reyes episode.