Page 85 of Fall onto me
She holds her head up high. “Do what you will, because that felt amazing.”
“Please don’t.” I plead.
Askena dusts her hands on her vest. “He’s handcuffed, and we have body cams that will show what she’s done. There are rules I have to follow.”
Mom doesn’t have a wrinkle of worry on her face. Not in the usual perfect way that’s strict and rigid. She looks free. It’s a freedom I’ve recently become accustomed to, and in that moment, every slip of anger I have dissipates.
“Skyler, honey. You’re a very rich woman now. Just bail me out.”
Grace shows up unannounced, and worry laces her vision when she sees my mother being handcuffed. An officer rushes in behind her. “She ran past me,” he announces, attempting to catch his breath. Detective Askena looks annoyed at her partner, gesturing for everyone to file out of the office that has quickly become overcrowded.
But Kent isn’t done telling us just how not screwed he is. “You have nothing. The government will take it all. And as for me, I’ll walk away from the charges.”
“You don’t have my niece’s trust.” Grace points to me, smiling as she exits, being escorted by the out-of-breath officer.
Kent looks bored. “I took you out of the will. You have no trust.”
Cara grins. “You mean the will that you asked me to get notarized at the bank months ago? Must have slipped my mind. You’re going away for a long time, Kent.”
A short, clipped hiss escapes him. “It’s so funny, you think you’re so smart. You don’t have a fucking thing of substance on me. Do you know what a white-collar crime will get me? One to five years max in a luxury prison.” He cackles.
This isn’t a fight of guns and violence, it’s a battle of wits.
“What about the other thing?” Mom asks Askena.
The detective pulls out her paperwork, showing file after file of forged documents for businesses around the city. A part of me worries about Warren’s mom, because when his dad was still around them, he hired my father to get an illegal tax break on the new wing. “What you sent is enough to put him away for tax fraud. It’s better than nothing.”
“What about the recording?”
Askena shakes her head. “What recording?”
“I gave it to the officer, and he sent it to the computer at the station and then deleted it from my phone since it was police evidence.”
Detective Askena looks at the other officers. “Barnes.” She sighs. “Mrs. Johnson, I’m sorry but he wasn’t on our side in this.”
Her face falls, and all recollection of the power that radiated from her moments ago is gone. “I … I tried.”
Dad laughs at her attempts, and that more than anything tonight enrages me. A cop who was supposed to protect has destroyed whatever evidence my mom had. Just like that, it was gone, deleted from existence … “Mom!” I smile. “Where is your phone?”
She nods her head down. “Front pocket.”
I pluck it from her pocket and rush to the deleted files, praying that it’s still there. Barnes may be a bad guy, but he’s not a genius.
And there it is, whatever it is, right there.
I press play.
‘Either you help me, or you will fall.’
The speaker plays my voice;it’s when I asked for help when Foster was locked away.
Mom looks at me. “I know I needed to be brave, Skyler. And when you came in here, so determined, and he said all of this was your fault, I knew it was time.”
She was beside me that day, and she curled her fingers around the lip of his desk. My eyes roam to that spot. “You tapped the desk.”
She nods, and Kent goes rigid as the police flank either side of him, holding his handcuffed arms. “This was my project, my payback for everything he’s ever done to you.”
“You don’t have shit,” he sneers, but his words are nearly a whisper. He knows he’s been caught, but I don’t remember anything bad happening during that conversation.