Page 36 of Julien (Confessions 2)

Fucking Jimmy, Priest thought, as he tore into the plastic to get to the box beneath. He’s the gift that just keeps on fucking giving.

Once he had the box open and the new phone in hand, he grabbed the cord and plugged it all in. He’d have to call for the new number when he was ready to switch, but that shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.

He placed the phone on his desk to let it charge, and then powered up his laptop, and once it was up and online, he typed in a search he hadn’t allowed himself to look at in years. As the results appeared, Priest scanned the titles flooding his page and felt sick to his stomach. God, this was the last thing they needed to be dealing with right now.

He stared at page after page of Jimmy’s transgressions as though he were looking down the barrel of a gun, and he couldn’t help but wonder who, and what, was going to be responsible for pulling the trigger.

He scrolled down the first page, past the articles detailing Jimmy’s arrest, trial, and incarceration, until he reached the reasons why all that had happened. It was four stories down on the first page: Notorious underboss and killer of 19 confesses his crimes.

What a lovely way to phrase it, Priest thought, as he shut his eyes and brought his hands up to his face to press his fingers to his forehead. It was times like this—the quiet times—that he loathed more than anything else because that was when his mind went there. To the places no man should ever go.

New Orleans.

The heat. The humidity.

The broken-down shack by the bayou.

And the blood.

All. That. Blood.

Stop, Priest ordered himself as he opened his eyes and hit print on the article. Fucking stop. But even as he tried to shove the memories back into the cracks they’d crawled out of like roaches, he could hear his father’s voice in his head as though he was standing right in front of him: “Boy, there’s only two things in life that you should fear—me and God. And no matter how far you run or how well you hide, we’ll always find you, and when we do, you better hope one of us is in a forgivin’ kind of mood.”

“Priest?” Logan’s voice, and knock on his door, was like a whip cracking with the way it made Priest jerk in his chair. “You in here?”

Priest looked over to where Logan now filled the doorway and didn’t miss the flash of confusion that crossed his face.

“Hey?” Logan said as he wandered in. “You okay?”

Priest sat forward in his chair and clasped his hands on the desk to keep from balling them into fists. Keep it cool, he told himself. Don’t act fucking weird. Mitchell is too smart not to notice.

“Yes,” Priest said, as Logan came to a stop opposite him and looked down at the new phone charging on his desk. “Everything’s fine. Is there something I can help you with?”

Logan brought his eyes back up to meet Priest’s. “No. I was actually coming to let you know that Judge Walsh cancelled his docket for tomorrow. Something about food poisoning? You’ll be emailed your new date and time for the Bateman hearing.”

“Okay,” Priest said, and when Logan just stood there, he added, “Was there something else?”

“New phone?”

Priest looked down at the packaging on his desk. “Yes. I’ll get you my new number as soon as I have it.”

“Okay.” Logan’s eyes then shifted to the article now sitting on the printer, and he walked over and picked it up to hand to Priest. “This is an interesting case to be reading about. Are you taking on a crime boss that I don’t know about?”

Priest reached for the paper and placed it on the desk facedown. “No. I just find it…fascinating.”

“That it is,” Logan said as he unbuttoned his jacket and took a seat, and Priest had to fight every instinct he had not to ask him to get the hell out. “I remember going over his trial in law school.”

Shit. That was the last thing Priest wanted to hear, and most definitely the last thing he wanted to talk about. After all, it wasn’t like he could say, I remember living it.

When Priest remained tight-lipped and offered up nothing in way of a verbal or physical response, Logan frowned and said the one thing that Priest had hoped he wouldn’t.

“Didn’t he have kids? Hell, I can’t remember all the details now, but I’m positive he had kids. What a waste of a human being. To go out and do his hits, and then come home for fucking dinner like everything was normal.” Logan shook his head. “I swear, some people shouldn’t be locked up, they should just be put down. He’s one of those people.”

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