Page 92 of Slow Burn (The Boston Beauties)

His face turned from humored to serious in a split second. ‘That Cahill girl?’

‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘Jessa was my fiancée. My roommate told me it was on the news, I haven’t seen it yet. So if it’s true, I can leave?’

Charles shook his head. ‘Not that easy, your lawyer will need to bring this to a judge, there will be a ruling…’

‘What the fuck, she’s out there, alive, and you are telling me I have to stay in here?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t make the rules, I just have to enforce them. I suggest calling your lawyer and getting him to start to the process.’

‘I’ve left him a message.’

‘The DA knows about it, I’m sure your lawyer has already been informed.’ I was nodding, taking some comfort in his words.

‘But I really can’t leave here?’

‘Not without a judge’s order, I’m afraid.’

‘Fuck,’ I murmured storming off to my cell.

~

Two days. It took my lawyer two fucking days to haul his ass out to see me. I had been in the middle of a tutoring session when one of the guards informed me that my lawyer was here.

‘It took you long enough,’ I spit out, sitting down at a table in a room I’d never been in before. I looked around to notice that it had two-way glass, ‘What’s going on?’ I demanded. ‘You better have petitioned the fucking judge and have a pardon for me in that cheap messenger bag of yours.’

‘Not quite,’ he informed me, taking out a few documents and a tablet. ‘There’s incriminating evidence that has been brought to our attention. On the other side of that glass is the current District Attorney David Fitzpatrick, the Cahills attorney Abby Dawson, and a few other junior lawyers from the DA’s office and Jordan Green’s law firm.’

‘Shit…’ I whispered. They brought out the big guns, this couldn't be good. But I didn’t know what evidence they could have on me other than the fake passports, which I had always wondered if Jessa had somehow found out about and stolen. ‘I don’t see why they came all the way out here, they could have called me with an apology.’

‘We have your brother’s confession on this table, Matthew, or based on all the evidence that’s been presented, should I call you Justin?’

My head snapped up to him and then to the mirror. Fuck, they knew, but just how much they knew I would let them reveal to me and not the other way around.

‘A detective would like to come in to interview you, I’ll be here.’

I nodded and a door opened and in walked Detective Chad O’Brien, a guy I’d met a few times during my arrest. I looked to him but that was as far as I went to acknowledge him.

‘Justin Taggart,’ he said my real legal name, a name I hadn’t heard in many years. ‘You must have thought you were a free man when you saw Jessa return.’

‘I am, I didn’t kill her.’

‘No, but how about you tell me your version of what happened the night Josh Cahill died.’ He looked at me with a smug look of satisfaction on his face. ‘You see, we have your sister in custody, and that tablet has a confession from your brother, Christopher is it?’

I wanted to tell him that he wasn't even there, but then I would be admitting to his existence. ‘You can play hardball allyou want, Justin, but we are giving you the chance to set the record straight, to see your side of things, see how they match up to what your siblings have told us.’

‘Where’s Julia?’ I had to ask.

‘She’s locked up.’

‘And where’s Christopher?’

‘He’s currently in a jail cell in Morocco, awaiting extradition papers to Canada, but we’re trying to get him here. Our system is a little less lenient for the likes of you three.’

I took a deep breath and looked to the mirror where I knew Abby was watching me, likely enjoying every moment watching me sweat like the ballbuster she was. That chick was too uptight to ever unwind, a night in this place would do the bitch good. ‘Abby, please tell Jessa it wasn’t me, I didn’t want him to die. Christopher made Julia do it, and I’m so sorry.’

‘How about you start from the beginning.’

I nodded, remembering that night a few years back. It was before I purchased my condo with Jessa. I hated the small studio apartment I had been renting and worked long hours at my office at the back of my sister’s salon, where I had a bed and a small kitchenette. When I needed, I could always pop upstairs and use her shower.

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