Page 6 of Jon's Helter Skelter Cold Case

Torres chose to shut up. Then again, he’d been through this process before, so he knew to make nice at this point. Not that it would do him much good.

I wasn’t an expert, but I could read Jon’s face, and Abby was busy over here making notes, and none of them were positive.

Yeah, Torres wasn’t getting out anytime soon.

Still, there had to be a formal hearing to adhere to procedure, so Chelsea sucked in a tired breath and started in.

“Mr. Torres, you have applied for parole. Please plead your case.”

Torres started talking, which wasn’t the best move, in my opinion, even though he’d been urged to talk. Him talking did not make things better.

Jon had a system worked out with the parole board members. Every time a lie was told, he’d tap his pen. An easy, simple way of sayinguh-uh. Man looked like he was fidgeting, he tapped so much. Torres calmly spewed one lie after the next, proving he was an experienced liar.

Finally, the man rounded down and looked proud of himself, like he’d gotten his whole speech out perfectly, as planned.

Dummy, dummy, dummy.

Chelsea finished scoring her paper. She didn’t even glance in any other direction to verify with people, just put her pen down and looked up. “Denied, Mr. Torres. Please return to your cell.”

He sat there, looking at her with this poleaxed expression. “What? Why?!”

“Because there’s no remorse in you.” Lewis shook his head. “We don’t even need Jon to see that. You just spent five minutes lying to our faces. Frankly, until you come to grips with your pyro side, you’re a menace to society.”

Torres lunged out of his chair, but I’d expected the move. I left my seat the second he did, reaching him in two long strides.

Oh no you fucking don’t, you asshole. You’re not getting near anyone in here.

Torres noticed my approach but couldn’t turn around fast enough. I caught him in a bear hug from behind, lifting his feet right off the ground.

Torres wiggled, trying to fight my hold or kick at me. “Let me down, dammit!”

“Not on your life.”

The guard caught up, so I put Torres down and spun him, giving the guard the right access to slap cuffs on him. “I got him, Havili. Thanks.”

“No problem, man.” The guards here were good guys. I let go completely and let him do his job.

Chelsea had a hand over her heart, and she looked a little wide-eyed. “And this is the other reason why I love it when you come, Jon. We always get some extra protection.”

I winked. “Happy to serve.”

“Thank you, Donovan. And I want you all—you too, Abby—at my barbecue party this weekend, all right?”

See? Fancy dinner bribes. No complaints from me. “You got it.”

We all cleaned up and then walked out the door—Jon reviewing Abby’s notes as we left. He kept a hand on my arm, letting me guide his feet. It always tickled me when he trusted me blindly like now. And he knew it, so he did it often. This man spoiled me.

While walking through the main hallway, heading for the doors leading outside, I asked Abby, “What did you think?”

“Like, it was really interesting. I didn’t always understand what I was seeing, having never seen it before. But I can understand why Jon brought me, as it’s good practice.” She nodded firmly, her curly brown hair swaying in its high ponytail. “I want to do it more.”

“You’ll definitely be doing it more. Trust me. Now that the warden and parole board members know about you, you have job security.”

“There’s worse things in life.” A bounce appeared in her stride.

I hadn’t thought she’d react any differently.

We went through the process of signing out at the front desk and giving back our visitor badges. It neared four o’clock now, close enough to quitting time we might as well go back home and send Abby on her way. That being said, what to do about dinner?

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