“Shut up!” JD smacks me in the mouth. “Just shut the fuck up!”
“You sold your baby, didn’t you?” My disgust overshadows my fear and I wriggle in his grasp.
“Quiet, Blue!” Ark yells. “JD, just put the gun down.”
But he only presses it into my head harder. “I’ll kill her, Ark. Take one more step, and I’ll kill her.”
“You won’t kill her. You love her, JD. You love her like you loved Marie.”
The pressure of the barrel against my head eases a little.
“That’s it,” Ark says. “Just put the gun—”
“Hands in the air!”
And then all hell breaks loose. Windows crash as bodies fly through them. Red lasers are all over the place, the dots flying, one on me, then JD. I look at Ark and there’s several dots dancing on his chest.
“No,” JD says. “I’m not going down this way!”
Denver Federal Center
Lakewood, Colorado
Present day
“And?” Matheson asks, when I say nothing. “You saw her first. What’s that got to do with anything?”
I close my eyes, the scene still fresh in my mind. Gunshots. That’s all I hear in my head. Nothing but gunshots. I rub my eyes, making those little pinpricks of light appear behind my eyelids. “I can’t tell this story,” I finally say. “It’s not mine to tell.”
“You bet your ass you’re gonna tell this story,” Jerry growls. “We’ve got dead bodies, asshole. Your loft was the site of several murders tonight. So we’re gonna fucking sit here until you tell us—”
A knock on the door interrupts Jerry’s rant. We all turn at the same time to look at the man who opens the door.
“What?” Jerry snaps. “We’re in the middle of—”
“Sorry.” The new guy looks at me and shakes his head. “Someone called from DC and said they’re shutting this down.”
“Shutting what down?” Matheson asks. “We’re in the middle of a case here—”
“Agent Matheson,” the new guy says. “I realize that. But we just got orders. From DC. For me to come in here and shut you up. So get out.”
There’s a long moment of silence while the two assholes in front of me have a staring contest, and then Jerry starts gathering the photos, but when he tries to take the one of Blue, I hold onto it. “Fuck you!” I snap at him, taking him by surprise and making him recoil back. “I’m keeping this.”
He starts to snatch it away, but the new guy interferes again. “Let him keep it, Jerry. He’s gonna need it.”
And then they exit the room and leave me to wonder what the fuck that means.
I stare at that picture for what seems like hours. It’s one of mine. One they lifted off my computer at home.
Not my home. I need to come to terms with that. It’s not my home.
I close my eyes and picture the scene when I took that photo.
Blue and JD were relaxing on the couch while I worked in my office. And they started playing around. He was making her giggle like a girl. And Blue was making JD laugh.
He started smiling again a while ago. I don’t know how long it took exactly. But the past two years have been good.
No, I correct myself. Great. They were great. For him and for me.
But the laughter that day… it did something to me. It made me feel like no matter what happened, I made the right choice when I decided to help JD recover.
I look at the picture again. Blue is alone, but JD was just off to the right of her. She didn’t realize I was taking pictures, so her eyes are full of two things.
Happiness. Because JD made her so fucking happy.
And surprise at the camera shutter. Because that was what I gave her.
Instead of love, I gave her lies.
The gunshots…
I want the memory to go away. But it won’t. I’ve been here for hours. And it’s still replaying in my mind like some fucked-up movie on repeat.
“You sold your baby, didn’t you?”
Blue saw it in the end. She saw through my lies. And even though she was the one with the gun pointed at her head, I knew she was not the one who would end up dead.
“Quiet, Blue!” I scream at her. Please, God, just make her stop talking. “JD, just put the gun down.”
“I’ll kill her, Ark. Take one more step, and I’ll kill her.”
I zoom in on his trigger finger and his shaky hand. Please God, no. “You won’t kill her. You love her, JD. You love her like you loved Marie.”
And in that moment I have a glimmer of hope. Because he pulls the gun back from her head. He looks at it, like he can’t believe he’s holding it in his hand.
“That’s it,” I tell him. “Just put the gun—”
“Hands in the air!”
The FBI is everywhere. A SWAT team crashes through the terrace windows. Red laser dots are dancing on Blue, JD, me…
And then it’s over.
JD points the gun at himself.
And he pulls the trigger.
I break down after that. I sit in the FBI interrogation room with my head on the cold metal table, and I break the fuck down.
I see his head exploding all over Blue. I see the horror on her face.
I feel her heart shatter. I feel her knees hit the floor. The pain that must have caused. The bruises she’s probably looking at right now. Bruises I’ll never see because she’s gone. That call from DC was about her, I know it. Her father has surely been informed by now that his daughter is alive.
Good for him. I’m happy she’ll go home. I really am. She needs to get out of this town and do whatever it takes to get her life back.
But my best friend is dead.
His life is over.
And my heart is shattered. Not in two pieces, but three.
I fall asleep like that, my face, wet from grief, on the cold metal table. And when I wake up, Jackson is sitting across from me, a frown on his face.
“Jacob,” he says in a whisper.
I shake my head. I try to remember him the way he used to look when I last saw him, but I can’t quite conjure up the image in my mind. “I haven’t been Jacob in a very long time.”