Things We Do in the Dark(98)

“Go back to sleep,” she whispered.

The frogs began to croak again.

She was not okay. Not even a little bit. She should have told Deborah the truth when she asked, but really, what would it change? Her mother was in prison, and there was nowhere to go, and so this was her life, because it had always been her life, and it would either kill her, or she would survive it.

Tonight, both sounded equally terrible. She was being punished. For the lie she had told.

And in the end, it wasn’t even worth it. There were monsters everywhere. It was like playing that old carnival game, Whac-A-Mole. As soon as she pounded one monster down, another one popped up.

Unable to sleep, Joey lay with her eyes open all night long, watching as the moonlight changed to morning. Only when the sun came up and the room was bright did her eyelids finally grow heavy, and she slipped the box cutter back between the mattress and the bed frame, back into the crack where nobody looked, because nobody cared.





PART FIVE


We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl

—PINK FLOYD





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE


Paris stares at her lawyers from across the kitchen table. Well, one of them is her lawyer. The other is a lawyer. But both their faces are somber, and the way they’re looking at her now is scaring the shit out of her. They look like they’re on the verge of dropping some incredibly bad news.

“Okay, who died?” Paris asks. She winces the second she hears what she just said, and curses her mouth for being faster than her manners. “I’m sorry, bad choice of words. Let me try it again. Why are you both here, and how worried should I be?”

“It’s not bad,” Elsie says. “It’s quite the opposite.”

“It’s an early Christmas present,” Sonny says, his shark grin finally appearing. “Unless you’re Jewish, in which case it’s all eight days of Hanukkah rolled into one.”

Elsie jabs him with her elbow. “You can’t say things like that. You’ll offend someone.”

“Counselors,” Paris says, her gaze shifting back and forth between the two of them. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Sonny slides the folder he brought with him across the table. “Happy fucking holidays.”

Paris opens the folder. Inside are three black-and-white photographs of herself, enlarged to 8x10s. She’s in her car, and it’s nighttime. The first picture shows her full face; she’s looking straight ahead through the windshield. The second picture is a 45-degree angle of her looking up as she hands over her passport. And the third photo is of her profile as she waits for the gate to lift. All three are time and date stamped.

US Border Patrol has finally come through, and Paris is looking at proof that she crossed back into the country at the exact time she said she did.

“Got these about an hour ago. The DA’s office emailed them to me.” Sonny reaches over and taps a thick finger over the time and date stamp. “You crossed at 12:22 a.m., which means the soonest you could have gotten home is two thirty, just like you said.”

Paris is afraid to breathe.

“But wait,” Sonny says. “There’s more.”

“What are you going to do, sell her a Thigh Master now?” Elsie shakes her head, but she’s smiling.

Her lawyer pushes another folder toward her. “The medical examiner’s final report. As we thought, it confirms Jimmy’s time of death as between nine thirty and midnight.”

Paris is confused. “I thought you said that was too close for your liking.”

“Not anymore,” Sonny says. “Take a closer look at that report. What does it say right there?” He taps a box in the middle of the page.

Paris follows his finger. “It says cause of death is exsanguination due to a severed femoral artery.”

“Not that,” Sonny says. “Below it.”

Paris looks closer. Under the box for Underlying Cause of Death, the box for Homicide has been left unchecked. So too have the boxes for Natural Causes and Suicide. However, there is an X in the box beside Undetermined.

“Undetermined? What does that mean?” Paris looks up. “Are they saying they’re not actually sure how Jimmy died?”

“Bingo,” Sonny says. “The ME is saying that there’s no direct evidence confirming that Jimmy’s death was the result of a homicide. And you can’t be charged with a homicide if there wasn’t one.”

Paris holds her breath, unable to react until she hears him say it. One of them needs to say it.

“The DA has withdrawn the murder charge,” Elsie says. “It’s over.”

Paris waits three seconds. “Okay,” she says slowly. She refuses to relax until she understands it fully. “But they can still press charges in the future, right?”

“Against you? No.” Sonny cracks his knuckles. “The border crossing photos provide more than enough reasonable doubt. Against someone else? Maybe, if the cause of death changes, which it won’t, or if new evidence comes to light. But if they haven’t found it by now, I doubt they will.”

“All that’s left to do is return your ankle monitor. And I’m happy to take care of that for you.” Elsie reaches across the table and squeezes Paris’s hand. “It’s really over.”