Mercy Kill_ A Mystery - Lori Armstrong [74]
When I turned back around, Cherelle demanded, “Since when are you allowed to carry in here?”
“Since always.” I straddled the chair, allowing easy access to my gun and blocking her in. “So, Cherelle, here’s what we know. You talked to Jason several times, even on the night he was murdered. We have a few more questions about that topic of conversation.”
“I ain’t telling you shit, cop,” she spat.
“Although I hope to win the election, I’m not a cop yet, which means anything you tell me is off the record.”
“Right.”
Anna shoved a cup of beer at her. “So who fucked up your face?”
The bluntness caught Cherelle off guard.
“I’m betting it was some asshole guy who wanted to mark his territory.” Anna swallowed half her glass of beer. “I hope you castrated the son of a bitch.”
Cherelle’s gaze darted between us. “You are both pathetic. You think you can flash a piece at me and I’ll piss my pants because I’m scared? Of you two old bags? Don’t make me laugh.” She focused on Anna. “You think acting all fake, like we’re sisters under the skin, united against asshole men, is gonna make me break down because I’ve finally met a woman who understands what I’ve been through? Fuck off. You don’t know nothin’.”
“Yeah?” Anna jerked her T-shirt down, pointing to the long gash that ran from the right corner of her collarbone to her sternum. “I know exactly what it’s like to have some sadistic fucker cut you up.” She lifted her shirt, exposing the five knife wounds scattered at random intervals across her lower abdomen. “Ever been stabbed? Clear through your body so the knife comes out your back? You ever had to wait, knowing the insane motherfucker was going to stab you again? So don’t you sit there all fucking smug and tell me I don’t know nothin’.”
Cherelle stared at Anna with unabashed interest.
Some of Anna’s story was exaggerated. The gash on her chest was from scaffolding slicing her that night in Bali. But the stab-wound story was real. At age sixteen, Anna’s ex-boyfriend cornered her at a public park in California and attempted to kill her. An army medic saw it happening, called the cops, and stabilized her until the ambulance arrived. Surgeons repaired her liver, but Anna lost a kidney, her appendix, and her uterus, and gained a new appreciation for the army.
“Looks like you win this round. But tell me, Anna,” Cherelle repeated her name sarcastically, “do you ever see the guy who used you as a whetstone?”
Anna shook her head. “He’s in jail.”
“See, that’s where we’re different. I have to live with the guy who did this to me every day of my life.”
Tempting, to chug the whole pitcher and quit bitching about my lot in life.
“Why do either of you give a damn about that Jason Hawley guy? If the dude was trouble, I think you’d”—Cherelle pointed at me—“be happy he wasn’t around anymore.”
I started to answer, but Anna beat me to it. “Maybe she is happy, but I’m not. Jason may’ve been a scummy guy to her, but to me he was . . . mine. Know what I mean?”
Cherelle’s forehead puckered with total skepticism.
Anna pounded her beer and poured another. “Look, I’m not good with words, and I won’t bore you with the star-crossed-lovers bullshit, although it was true for me ’n’ Jason. He was . . .” Anna closed her eyes. “Dammit. He was great. He was everything. We had the real deal. Had it, and now it’s gone.”
The confession appeared to be working. Cherelle wasn’t look-ing defiant, just . . . interested. Concerned maybe, but not totally convinced.
“When Mercy called me after she’d found his body, I had to come here. I don’t know, probably sounds stupid, but I thought maybe I could . . . sense him or something.”
Ooh. Anna was good.
Cherelle broke the silence. “I do know what you mean. I had that real thing once, too.”
“Got it taken away from you?” Anna asked.
“Yeah. Just like you did. It sucked. Still eats at me.”
“So it doesn’t get better?”
Cherelle shook her head.
Anna confided,