Jaded (Jaded 1)

Bryce grew silent. His hand fell away from my knee. "Sheldon," he sighed.

And that one word, from that one voice that belonged to that one person—this is where my walls crumbled and I curled over my knees with a hoarse cry.

I didn't want to die.

"I'm so stupid. We're stupid." I cursed. "This isn't some high school prank. We're not—we have no idea what we're doing. We're talking about dirty cops. Are you serious?! When did we lose our minds?"

"Probably about the time when you said, 'let's have a party,'" Bryce remarked, ruefully. His hand slid down my back. "I don't think Corrigan ever had his mind, if that's worth anything."

"It's not and you're not helping," I pointed out.

He was joking. I was crumbling and he was joking.

"Stop the show," I murmured, hoarse. "I'm scared, Bryce. This is real…"

"I know!" Bryce snapped. "What do you want me to do? We're already…the party's here, Sheldon! The people are here. They're out there. We can't send them home. We can't…the trap's already been laid."

It hadn't been baited.

"I have to go out there."

"What? No!" Bryce denied.

&nbs

p; "Yes."

The trap needed to be baited. We'd brought it this far…

"No," Bryce said again. "This guy, he's strong, Sheldon. He's sick and twisted and you can't go out there. I mean, my god, he killed Leisha and Bailey. He killed them both and then moved their bodies. What kind of sick person does that?" Bryce shook his head again, but stopped when the door was abruptly kicked open. Chet stumbled inside, along with Mandy. They fell to the floor, rolled over, and stared at us, dumbfounded.

"Oh, hey." Chet grinned stupidly and then pushed himself upright. He soothed a hand down his wrinkled shirt and announced, "Corrigan's been arrested. The cops want you to go down and post bail. Some Officer Sherry told me to tell Sheldon that."

Bryce and I didn't even blink. We should've, but I almost expected something like that to happen. So we just stood and traipsed out the door. As we headed downstairs, I was grateful to see that a lot of people had cleared out, but was even more grateful when Mandy said she'd make sure everyone was gone by the time we got back.

Chet stayed behind, but Harris rode in the back. Bryce drove and I rode shotgun with a thick air of tension among us.

As we drew near the station, Harris asked, "Man, which door do we use?"

Bryce parked in the visitor parking lot and both of us got out without a word shared between us. We both fell in line beside each other as Harris trotted behind.

"Guess you guys have been here a few times, huh," Harris said dryly.

"Corrigan getting arrested. Not new."

"Hey," I glanced over my shoulder. "Thanks for doing the bail."

Harris shrugged, "No problem. Now I have a story to tell, you know. I bailed a buddy out of prison."

"Technically," Bryce murmured as he held open the door for us, "This is jail, not prison."

"We can have Corrigan call you from now on. Think of all the stories you can tell then," I suggested.

It bounced off of Harris' shoulders as he remarked, "Screw that party. We should head to a strip joint after this. Drinks on me."

I frowned and seriously wondered about his sanity.

As we swept into the main waiting area, we moved to the front desk where I asked for Officer Sheila Patterson. The officer on desk duty skimmed a cold, unfeeling, gaze over us both before he turned and disappeared down a side hallway. A moment later, Sheila followed behind and nodded in our direction. She gestured for us to proceed behind and we did while Harris stayed in the waiting room. More than a few police officers glanced up, watched, and bent their overworked shoulders over an endless pile of paperwork. The rustling of paper never paused, stopped, or slowed.

Sheila waited with her arms crossed at the end of the hallway. Her buttoned shirt had been pulled haphazardly from her jeans. Her gun and walkie were covered by the tails of her shirt with only a corner of her radio peaking out. Her hair was pulled back in a braid that looked like it had just seen a thirty four hour shift and knew it'd see another thirty four hours before it received any tender loving care.

Her eyes were tired. And flat. Sheila hadn't ever stopped being a cop, but I saw that the deadness stood prominent. It had me wondering what she'd unearthed in the last eighteen hours since I saw her.

"You look like you could use a bed," Bryce murmured in greeting.

Sheila smiled tightly and replied, "Morning."

I nodded, now tense.

Sheila raked another raking perusal over me before she nodded towards a closed door. "You know what's going on in there?"

Bryce didn't answer so I did. "You're interrogating Corrigan."

"You're right." She nodded briskly and moved into a back room. A one-way mirror separated us from Corrigan's room. He sat, bent over a table, his arms crossed underneath him and he looked like he was asleep.

"Care to venture why we're interrogating your friend?"

"Because he's a cocky teenager with authority issues," I said lightly.

Corrigan was unfazed as an officer slammed a file on the table. The table jumped, Corrigan did not. And the cop flipped open the file.

"You know what he's showing him in there?"

I knew. I didn't need to say it.

Sheila answered anyway, "Those are the pictures of Leisha Summers and Bailey Umbridge. Two girls that were raped, strangled, and cut to death. And your buddy in there thinks this is a joke. This isn't a joke."

Corrigan didn't even look. I watched, transfixed, as my best friend didn't even look at the pictures.

"He's not looking," I said faintly.

"He doesn't have to. He's already seen them," Sheila rasped out. "He saw them in person and we can place him at the scenes of the crimes."

"What?!" Bryce spoke now.

"Corrigan wasn't anywhere near—"

"Leisha Summers did not die in the park. She died a block away from your party that night. And Bailey Umbridge, she died in the same block. She wasn't killed in the school. She was found in the school, just like Leisha was found at the park. They were both moved."

"Corrigan was with me the whole night—" Bryce started to say.

Sheila cut him off, "You told me that he was with you 'most' of the night. He disappeared, didn't he? For a little while, didn't he? You told me that this afternoon. You can't take that back now."

I froze and whirled around.

Bryce stood, pale, and stiff. His eyes watched me in horror and he whispered, a choking sound, "I…"

His hand had held my elbow, but I moved forward, a slight shuffling step. His hand fell away and I was now cold.

"It didn't take long for him to slip away and murder Leisha. She was only a block away. He drove her over later, after you guys finished with your 'buddy.' Didn't he? He left again—"

"He went to the bathroom!" Bryce cried out, "I told you this."

"Yeah. You gave your 'friend' some holes in his alibi. That's what you did."

I glanced between the two and pressed, "He was with Logan the night that Bailey was murdered."

Everything was unraveling. Hideously.