Tia lay on her bunk pretending to be asleep. She had a different cellmate now, and this one was worse than the last. The woman stank; she was noisy, constantly talking to herself and bursting into loud coughing or sneezing fits that would wake her up or startle her.
She was also crazy.
“My God, the FBI’s got a camera planted even in the toilet,” said the woman, coming down from whatever drugs she’d been on that landed her in the shabby jail. “They watched me everywhere else, and now they’re watching me shit!”
Tia felt a rush of despair come over her. She felt trapped and totally helpless to escape the situation she was in. Panic began to tighten around her chest like a vice-grip.
Then she thought of the lady lawyer hired by God-only-knew-who who had come to help her. For some reason, this had a calming effect on her and she eventually fell asleep to the sound of her cellmate’s babbling.
Slowly, very slowly, she drifted back to Courtney. They kissed goodbye as Courtney left for work. Tia did some things on the computer. She cleaned the bathroom and kitchen. The phone rang. She went up the hill. Slowly, very slowly, she climbed the steep hill up to Morgan’s house. She continued up the drive, through the parking area, and to the door…
…Pop!
She opened the door, unsure of the sound she had just heard. Her eyes adjusted to the gloomy living room, and then she saw Stanley lying in a pool of blood.
Something was approaching her fast. She turned her head.
Morgan!
“Shut up! I said shut up!”
Tia didn’t realize right away that she was screaming. Her eyes snapped open. She sat upright and stared into the mean, bloodshot eyes of her cellmate.
“What the hell’s the matter with you, girl? You losing it or something?”
Tia said nothing. She couldn’t anyway because she was too busy trying to catch her breath and bring her heartbeat back to normal.
“What’s up, man?” she was asked a moment later.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, come on. What in the world is going on?”
“I said nothing!” Tia said, surprised at her own boldness. Did jail make you that way? Did it make you tougher than you’d normally be? Braver? Less afraid to speak your mind? Maybe it needed to in order to keep one from becoming a doormat to be stepped all over, and just to be able to survive.
Her cellmate’s eyes narrowed and at first, Tia thought she wasn’t going to drop it and that she might instigate an argument, even a fight, but this one seemed to know when to let things go.
Tia was wowed by just how fast she was changing in light of the circumstances she was in. Initially, she had feared for her own safety, but now she had to fear for others as well. She was a ticking time bomb, and should anyone push her far enough into a corner, she knew she would spring forth and surprise that person. She was only now beginning to understand what those meant when they said that trauma or extreme stress tended to give one strength they might not normally possess.
And she would need all the strength she could get to get through whatever lay ahead of her.
Once again, her thoughts turned to Lorelei. Would she believe her when she told her what she remembered? Or would she simply insist that it was a convenient thing to suddenly be remembering?
She didn’t know, and she couldn’t worry about what Lorelei’s reaction might be. She just knew she had to do the right thing and tell her what she knew. If she didn’t, she would basically be covering for a murderer.
Downstairs, the door to the pod slammed shut with a loud metallic clang, and Tia knew the guard was making her rounds. As she always did, her cellmate ran to the door, filling up the small square window and making it hard for Tia to see anything beyond the door. She felt her frustration grow as the guard approached a few minutes later and her cellmate began firing off her usual demands. When could she go to medical? Where was the part of her commissary that she failed to receive? What time was it?
“Please! I need to use the phone!” Tia had to scream out to be heard over the booming voice of her cellmate.
Her cellmate and the guard suddenly fell silent as they turned to look at her.
“Please, it’s very important that I call my lawyer right now and tell her what I remembered.”
Her cellmate snorted, stomped across the room, and threw herself down on her bunk.
Tia was afraid the guard would brush her off. After all, she wasn’t the one in for murder, so why should she care? Yet she surprised Tia by asking her if everything was ok.
“No, I’m afraid not. I had a concussion when I was first brought into custody over at the infirmary, and since then, I’ve been remembering bits and pieces of the incident that led me here. So if I could please call my lawyer, I’d really appreciate it because I don’t know how soon she’ll be back to see me.”
The guard studied Tia for a moment, unsure of what to do. Finally, she said, “Ok, but you better make it fast, Karson. I mean lightning fast.”
“No problem,” said Tia as she swung around to pull the card from the foot of her bunk that Lorelei had had the visiting staff give to her. Then she slid into her sandals and headed downstairs to where the rows of phones were.
“Five minutes,” the guard said sternly. “That’s all you got.”
Tia dialed the number on the card before her.
“Connors and associates,” a young woman said after the second ring.
“Hi. My name is Tia Karson, and I need to speak to Lorelei Connors.”
“Are you a client of hers, ma’am?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, she happens to be in court right now, so can I take a message for you and have her get back to you?”
“I’m actually calling from the jail, but yes, you can tell her that I remember everything. I know who the killer is.”
“Oh, ok,” said the woman, voice maintaining its pleasant yet professional ring as if Tia had just told her she’d discovered a great place to shop for designer sunglasses.
“It’s Morgan. Morgan Cole killed Stanley Hagan.”
Lorelei Connors finished sharing dinner with her loyal companion of ten years, a border collie named Jelly Belly who, like most mammals, had acquired a bit of a gut with age, thus making his name all the more appropriate.
She compared Morgan Cole to her daughter, Courtney, in her mind. They seemed as different as night and day.
She believed there was a chance that Courtney had no idea as to what really happened, and she believed that the girl truly did care about Tia, something she found bothersome for some reason. It was as if she’d suddenly become very protective of Tia, something she’d never felt toward any other client before. She had simply done her best job of investigating their cases and defending them in court. Yet she felt a personal obligation toward this girl. She was driven like never before. Was it because Tia seemed so young and innocent? Because she was attractive? Whatever the reason, Lorelei Connors was determined to prove Tia’s innocence and see that she regained her freedom. On top of that, she was determined to go after the guilty party. The one who had put Tia in the predicament she was now in.
Her mind shifted from Tia and Courtney to Morgan. She didn’t like her. She had given her bad vibes from the very start of their meeting and Lorelei was pretty good with reading people. She could sense that Morgan was hiding something. The woman had seemed fearful, defensive, and well, just plain reeking of guilt. The yard sale discrepancies alone were enough to raise a red flag. Morgan Cole obviously hadn’t bothered to keep her “items” straight as far as what she supposedly had for Tia, which she’d used as a reason to lure Tia up to the house so that she could be framed for the murder she herself had committed. Tia was sure it was a skirt. Morgan said it was a blouse. Courtney said it was a sundress. Somehow, she doubted that three people were that forgetful.
Unless somebody was telling different things to different people.
Her mind switched back again to Tia and the message she’d left with her secretary earlier in the day. They had a lot to talk about tomorrow at the jail. She just wondered when Tia was going to tell her about her past, which she’d learned about through her own research before their initial meeting.
If it hadn’t been for the wonderful aroma of the food cooking all day in the slow cooker, she wouldn’t have been able to restrain herself from going to the websites Tia had visited that had piqued her interest. But now she had eaten and wouldn’t have to worry about her stomach growling while she checked out the sites.
She brewed herself a cup of decaffeinated coffee and took it into her downstairs office. Jelly Belly followed and plopped himself down by her feet. She then woke up her large-screen Apple iMac and typed the name of one of the sites in her browser’s address bar that she had written on her notepad.
It appeared to be a photo-sharing site of some kind. There were pictures of Tia at various ages in her life. Most of the pictures bore no captions and so she could only guess as to who some of the other people in the pictures could be. The only ones she recognized were Courtney and Morgan. Courtney smiled sweetly into the camera while Morgan appeared harsh and serious, like she was caught in a foul mood.
The pictures started off as expected. Headshots, full body shots, shots of pets, shots of what may’ve been friends and family, and then the pictures took a surprising turn. As she flipped through the pages of the virtual photo album, she began to see pictures of Tia singing and dancing. Some appeared to be on stage, others publicity photos of some kind. The research she’d done on her had mentioned “performing arts,” but she hadn’t realized the degree to which Tia had been involved in it, and it appeared she had been quite involved indeed. The intricate poses in which Tia was captured, and the stage setups themselves, suggested she was no amateur. Could she really have been a professional dancer and singer? If so, then why would she be working in a pet store? Could it have been due to too much publicity? Or had she become tired of being a showpiece, always scrutinized and judged?
She finished studying the pictures and even downloaded a few for herself that she liked. Two were face shots, and another was of her in a pale pink bikini. Her hair length was never above her waist in any of the pictures. The longest seemed to be in the most recent pictures taken with Courtney. It was a good five inches below her behind! Lorelei had sometimes fantasized about being with a girl who had overly long hair, though she figured it would be a pain in the ass, getting in the way of just about everything.
Lorelei reached for her notepad again and went to the second address she’d jotted down.
Now this one provided a lot more information about the young lady who was fast becoming a person of interest, so to speak, in her mind.
It was Tia’s journal. Perhaps she should feel guilty for reading it, but she didn’t. It was a public journal, after all, and well, she couldn’t help herself. She wanted to know - had to know - all she could about this special client of hers. And so she read through the hundreds of captivating entries. She was amazed at Tia’s honesty and how well she had expressed her feelings, beliefs, and experiences in life. She’d documented the last few years of her life, alternating between past and present experiences, as well as hopes and dreams for the future. Several other members would leave a handful of comments on most entries, mostly to encourage her to try to achieve the things she wanted or to say they could relate to something she’d felt or experienced.
The older woman was mesmerized by Tia’s words. She admired her foremost traits and how she was intelligent yet almost naïve at the same time. Her profile picture showed that of an innocent-looking young girl who also had an air of wisdom that came with more experiences than most twenty-two-year-olds should have.
Lorelei yawned and glanced at the clock in the corner of her monitor.
What! Was it after midnight already?
“Shame on you, girl!” Lorelei said to Tia’s picture with a chuckle.
Lorelei put the Mac to sleep and went upstairs, Jelly Belly following close behind. The sooner she got to sleep, the faster she could wake up and go see Tia Karson.
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