Page 5 of Jon's Helter Skelter Cold Case

Aww, poor guy. He’d made some bad decisions, but apparently he wasn’t a bad person.

“Th-thank you,” Thomas choked out. “Thank you very much. I promise to do better moving forward.”

An incredibly low bar from my perspective, but without question the right direction to aim.

Thomas was escorted out, and the whole room relaxed a hair. Jon waved Abby in closer. He did this between each hearing, wanting to see her notes.

Everyone else stood, stretching their legs, including me. These hard plastic chairs werenotcomfortable.

Lewis came over to speak, grinning from ear to ear. Generally he was a happy man, but today he practically beamed. “Donovan. Can we keep Abby?”

“You’ve got to wait until she’s fully trained and out of school at least, man.” I grinned back at him. Abby had job security waiting for her, that was for sure.

The fifty-year-old ex-cop made a face. “But Jon’s always so busy!”

“She’s not cleared to work without supervision yet. Hold your horses. She’s good though, isn’t she?”

“Hell yeah, she is.” Lewis turned so he could grin at her, which Abby returned, tickled at the praise. “Some more experience doing this, and she’ll be another Jon running around, and god knows we need the help. Cuts the workload and guesswork way, way down.”

“That it does. Was that our last one for today?”

“No, one more,” Chelsea corrected from the table. She remained standing in her low-heeled shoes, but she flipped through the file in front of her, reviewing it. “This one’s the most challenging of them all.”

Oh. Finishing strong, I guessed. “What’s his deal?”

“Name’s Torres, forty-eight, spends more time in the system than out, according to his record. He’s in for several accounts of arson and causing alotof property damage. Talking over two million. He’s served his base time.”

Base time was what the judge set during the trial. If the judge stated an inmate was eligible for parole, there was always a certain amount of time they had to serve first. “What was Torres’s base time?”

“Ten years.”

I let out a low whistle. Long time to be in, all right. Two million in property damage was no joke.

The guard outside the door gave a warning knock, and we all went back to our seats. Abby was a very happy girl, pleased she was doing so well. I did see a few corrections with Jon’s blue pen, showing her what she’d missed or slightly correcting what she’d seen. But they looked like minor corrections, and Abby was clearly not worried about it.

The door opened and a man in an orange jumper—who was covered in tattoos and had a shaved head—stepped through. He had mean written all over him in capital letters. I didn’t like the vibe from him at all. Most of the prisoners we’d seen today hadn’t been antagonistic, but this guy? He’d throw hands with little to no provocation.

Jon caught my eye and gave the signal, aTresting under his chin.

I gave him a nod in return. Got it.

Abby leaned in to whisper, “What did that mean?”

“Our sign for this guy’s trouble,” I whispered back.

Her mouth formed anOin enlightenment. “Can I use it too?”

“Please. In fact, I’ll teach you all the hand signals later.”

“Okay.”

It would so make my life easier if she could subtly signal me for help. I really should have thought of this before.

Torres dropped into the chair, but his eyes were on Jon. Sometimes his gaze flickered over to me and Abby, assessing, like he was sizing us all up for a fight. No sign of remorse from this guy. I had a feeling I knew how this would go.

“Normally three in a hearing, right?” Torres challenged.

Chelsea stared him down. Honestly, I wouldn’t cross Chelsea; she was the type of woman who would tear you up. “Mr. Bane is a psychic who works with us, Mr. Torres. Show him the same respect.”

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