Page 34 of Orion Ruined

“Here.” He passes it to me.

“I saw someone cleaning the kitchen earlier,” I tell him.

“Leila. She works for me, cleans the house, helps with whatever I need. Did she see you?”

“She did. Or at least she knew I was here. Didn’t say a word to me.”

“Five years ago, I helped get her son out of jail and she wanted to help me in return,” he says. “She turned out to be the most trusted person on my payroll. Not interested in anything or anyone. She comes, does her job, and leaves.”

“Was she the one that bought my clothes?”

“Yes.”

I roll my eyes. “Figures.”

“Why’s that?”

“Can’t you tell by these granny panties that I wear? She’s old.”

Orion seems to be biting back a smile as he takes the pan and flips the pancake. “Tell me about July 15, 2019.”

I look away, trying to remember. “I got nothing. Nothing connected with any of your crime syndicates in New York. Apart from random facts, the only note I remember seeing is about a mobster from Miami.”

His eyes flicker. “Go on.”

“John Lopes, tortured and killed in Miami after a state-wide syndicate meeting. Among the gruesome stuff done to him, someone cut off his balls. That was underlined in red.”

Orion has a notebook next to the pan and as he writes, he forgets the pancake, which starts burning. “Fuck!” He catches it in time and flips it quickly.

“I can help if you want.” I stand up. “You need your hands to take notes.”

“I’m good, thank you. Stay where you are,” he orders, and I sit down again. His next question is more of a statement. “The letter addressed to me.”

“There were too many letters with your address on. When I think about it, it’s as if someone’s been taking your mail. Have you noticed that happening?”

“Yes, a while back.”

“Okay. Um, a court case from seven years ago. As a public defender, you represented the state versus Logan Vitali over the murder of the owner of the local store. You made so many errors that the case was thrown out of court. It’s why you lost your job as a public defender.”

Orion takes notes, skillfully flipping pancakes at the same time.

“But the letter from your mother, I got nothing,” I continue. “I never got to read it as it was sealed and in a box. I only glanced at it. Hm, who’s Lisa Carte?”

He turns to me. “Why?”

“I saw her name among your mail. But it was part of a different document. Is she your mother?”

“My sister.”

“What I saw wasn’t clearly written, quite a lot had been redacted, but it was about Christmas Day last year,” I recall. “Something happened or was about to happen and afterward, ‘she’ had to be killed. They kept referring to her as ‘she’ in inverted commas, and in another document it said ‘she’ wasn’t a threat any longer and was to remain alive, according to a psychologist.”

Orion stops writing and leans on the kitchen counter with his hands, his head low and eyes closed. “The name of the psychologist?” he asks through clenched teeth.

“Sigrun Jones.”

Orion curses under his breath, a long, juicy line of words that leave my mouth hanging open.

“Are-Are you okay?”

---