Not What it Seems by Nicky James

Fifteen

River

I knew something had gone wrong the moment Cyrus got into the car. He was pale and vibrating, his curls sticking to his sweaty forehead and standing on end like he’d been tugging at them.

“What happened?”

Without a word, staring straight ahead at the dark street beyond the windshield, he passed me a folded piece of paper. I thought we’d hit the jackpot. He’d gotten a name. My theory had been correct, and some married rich guy’s wife was seeking her revenge. That fucking bitch.

When I unfolded the paper and stared at the sloppy, handwritten message on the inside, I saw I was wrong.

I can help you clear his name. I know who’s responsible. Come find me. There was an address and the initials C.J.

“She found me again. She knew I might go to the bar asking questions. How? She knows I’m helping you, River. She knows I broke you out of the hospital. She’ll ruin me. My career, my life, everything is over. I’m—”

I touched his arm. “Hey.”

Cyrus turned a haunted expression on me.

“If she hasn’t gone to the police yet, she won’t. She could have gone a hundred times already. I don’t know why she hasn’t. Especially if she knows who did this to me. You have to calm down.”

“Calm down?” His voice grew more hysterical.

“Yes. Calm down. Breathe.” I tucked a wild curl behind his ear and brushed a few lingering strands off his forehead. “What did Jimmy say?”

Cyrus shook his head. “He didn’t know anything. My description was too vague. It was another guy, Chase, who talked to her.” Cyrus’s eyes widened. “Oh god, he knew who I was too. He could report me as well. What if—”

“Chase is a brain-dead idiot. Trust me. You have nothing to worry about from him. What else happened?”

“I asked him to describe the woman who gave him the note. He said she was blonde, skinny, really rough looking, and probably early fifties. She wore her hair back in a ponytail, but he said it was greasy and gross. He couldn’t remember what she wore. She didn’t leave her name.”

“It’s the woman I saw outside the hospital. It has to be.”

“Your mother.”

I scrubbed my face. “I don’t know anymore. Maybe, but it doesn’t make sense. Why now? It’s been over a decade. It can’t be her.”

“It sounds like her. Plus, the initials. C.J. Camilla Jenkins. Your mother would be in her later forties, right? But she would look older since her lifestyle has probably taken its toll.”

I stared at the note and the messy writing. It matched the one Cyrus had found on his car back in St. Thomas. “What if this is a trap?”

“Meaning?”

“What if this isn’t my mother at all but someone pretending to be, hoping they can lure me in? What if she is the woman I saw in the alley, and when I go to see her like she wants, she intends to kill me. Us.”

“You told me adamantly she wasn’t the one you saw in the alley.”

“I know what I said, but I was out of my freaking mind, okay. Yes, I’d been drinking because I hadn’t been sleeping. I told you I wasn’t trashed, but maybe I had a few more than I should have. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the whole thing is feeling fuzzier by the minute, and I don’t know anything anymore.”

“Then we need to think about how we want to play this.”

I tipped my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes. “Drive. Get us out of here.”

Cyrus started the car and took us back to the motel. We’d slept a few hours during the daytime, so neither of us was tired. I found the remote for the TV and clicked it on, searching for a news channel to see what they were broadcasting about me or the murders.

Cyrus dug through his briefcase and pulled out a pad of paper. He sat in the middle of the bed, a scowl on his face as he wrote.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to sort out the psychological workings of this person’s brain.”

I sat beside him and read over his shoulder. It was typical doctor chicken scratch. “How will that help?”

“Well, I’m not a forensic psychologist, but that’s what they do when they make a profile. So, I’m writing out everything I know, and I’m going to see what I come up with. I need quiet. I need to think.”

Cyrus zoned out while I flipped through more channels on the TV, finding nothing of interest. There was no breaking news bulletin, and it was too late for a scheduled local broadcast. I watched infomercials for a few minutes, then a half hour of a bad black-and-white western. There was a horror movie playing on one channel, but it was so old the CGI was cringe-worthy, and I couldn’t watch it. I scored when I came across an episode of Ren & Stimpy, but it was ending, and the next program was a horrible cartoon I’d never heard of.

Cyrus had filled a page with barely legible notes when I finally asked, “So, what do you have?”

“A headache.” He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck as he moved his head side to side, stretching.

I chuckled and batted his hand away, running my fingers through his thick curls, scratching my nails against his scalp, which I knew he liked. He closed his eyes and sighed.

I couldn’t deny I had a thing for Cyrus’s hair. It was silky soft and such a contrast to his personality. I loved touching it. I loved pulling it when we fucked. I loved burying my face in it afterward and inhaling his unique scent.

I rattled those thoughts away with a brief shake of my head and focused on the present.

“Talk me through what you’ve got.”

Cyrus groaned when I applied more pressure on his tense muscles. He took a minute longer to enjoy the touch before responding.

“I still firmly believe we are looking for two individuals. It is my professional opinion that they are male and female. The sheer complexity of all the things that have happened to you would be next to impossible for one person to pull off. I think whoever is running the show is smart and organized. They are also patient and capable of problem-solving on their feet. If I had to guess, I think that person would be male, and I don’t say that because statistically men are more likely to be serial killers than females nor am I sexist and think a woman wouldn’t be smart enough. I say it because of what I see in the crime itself. This person is angry and vindictive. He’s killed women who sell sex for money. He kills them with bleach, which tells me he thinks they’re dirty and disgusting.”

“A woman would fit that too. A woman angry enough with her cheating husband would find those prostitutes dirty and disgusting.”

“Hmm… True. I guess for all we know, it could be two women. How and why you’re tied in makes me curious. Again, this is speculative, but I think this person wants to make you suffer. Killing you isn’t good enough. This person wants to ruin your life, which makes me wonder if this person’s life has been ruined somehow and they blame you.”

“Okay. Let’s entertain the idea of it being a man and woman like you first suggested. If he’s the brains, what is the woman’s role? Why is she involved? Who is she?”

“She was useful to help put the plan into action. He needed her, but I’m concerned his need for her will expire, and once he doesn’t need her around, he might kill her too. Who she is to him? I don’t know.”

Cyrus dug fingers into the corners of his eyes. “You know what? Now that I say it out loud, I think it’s the other way around. The woman is the brains of the operation, and the man is pure muscle. This crime shows a high level of manipulation. The kills weren’t done randomly or in cold blood. They were specifically targeted. There is structure to it all. It’s based strongly in emotion. Women are more emotional creatures. They also tend to be more patient.”

“So what you’re saying is, we don’t know shit.”

“I told you, I’m not a forensic psychologist. I can tell you all there is to know about psychosis and mental health, but I don’t do profiling. This isn’t my skill set. I’m not trained for this. Dammit. I feel so stupid. I feel like it should be obvious.”

I touched his arm. He was being hard on himself for no reason, and it bothered me more and more. I hated seeing him like that. “It’s okay. Based on what you wrote down, could it be this C.J. person?”

“Of course it could. There is a strong possibility it is. However, if this person is your mother and hasn’t changed her ways, it’s unlikely. I’m not trying to be offensive, but she wouldn’t have the brains to pull this off unless she had the help of someone much smarter. Longtime exposure to drugs affects brain cells. That’s a fact.”

“No offense taken. I agree.”

“I want to believe she’s someone who can help us.”

A thought occurred to me, and I sat up straighter. “What if she is—or was—the woman sidekick, and she got away from whoever is running the show, and now she’s trying to help before he gets to me?”

Cyrus’s gaze flickered back and forth as he thought. “That… is a possibility too. Damn.”

Silence filled the room. Once again, we weren’t any further ahead.

I pulled out the paper from the mysterious C.J. and stared at the address. It was for an apartment in a sketchy part of the city. If she was my mother, then I had a lot of fucking questions for her, and none of them had to do with murder.

“Are we going to go?” Cyrus asked, breaking me from my musing.

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. We should go first thing. Wake her up. Catch her off guard.”

“We need to be careful if we’re going out in daylight.”

“I know.”

Cyrus glanced at his phone. “It’s after four.”

“So we have a couple of hours to kill. Ideas?”

Cyrus nervously fiddled with his phone before looking up at me from under his lashes. He shrugged. “Maybe one or two.”

I grinned as a shy smirk formed on his lips. He ran his hands through his hair and cut his gaze to the bed.

“You poor thing. You’re gonna need so much therapy after this, aren’t you?”

His head snapped up, and I saw exactly what I expected. A dark scowl.

I laughed. “Come on, you know I’m right.”

Cyrus shoved me down on the bed, pinning me with his weight. “You’re such an asshole.”

“Never claimed not to be. For the record, I think you’re doing fantastic. I’m glad you’re with me.”

For a moment, Cyrus hovered, his powder-blue eyes catching the light and shimmering. When he raked his teeth along his bottom lip and smiled, my stomach quivered.

“Tell me what to do,” he breathed. “I… like it when you order me around.”

This man was too much. He was smarter than me, older than me, and by all rights, not someone I’d have usually picked up. Why he’d called my attention back in May was a mystery, but the more time I spent with him, the more I realized how perfectly matched we were.

I wasn’t a doctor. I wasn’t skilled at figuring out head stuff like he was, but it seemed so simple. Cyrus felt constricted by a life that demanded perfection. He strived to live up to everyone’s expectations. He reached higher and higher until his arms were so overextended it caused him pain. He was an only child, pampered and doted on. His parents set standards, and Cyrus always aimed to hit them, doing his best to make them proud. He feared not being good enough. He feared disappointing anyone.

But sometimes, he desperately wanted to let go of all the responsibility. He wanted the freedom to not be in control for a change. He sought dominating men who would take that role. He wanted someone else to take care of him. The problem was, he’d found a guy who’d abused that power and done more damage than good. Cyrus was a sensitive soul underneath the professional exterior. He strived to make people happy. But it opened him up to being mistreated.

What did it say about me that I knew I could be that person for him? We fit. That was the kind of role I was meant to have.

But a relationship?

That was new for me. I’d never considered it.

I’d grown up with a wobbly sense of family and belonging. An absent mother, no father, and an endless cycle of foster homes where it was not wise to get attached because they were never permanent. I wasn’t sure I knew how to do this. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

“River?” Worry creased Cyrus’s brow. He was already panicking on the inside, convinced he’d done something wrong.

“Hey.” I smiled up at him and laced my fingers through his curls, hanging on tight as I brought his face to mine. “I’m here.”

“Will you take care of me like last night?”

The fluttering rhythm of my heart made it hard to talk. “Yeah. Yeah, I will. Kiss me first.”

* * *

It wasn’t an apartment. The address on the note led us to a low-income, government-assisted townhouse complex. The buildings were in poor repair with sun-burnt lawns and weed-filled gardens no one had taken care of and housed the kind of renters who hung blankets over their windows instead of curtains or blinds and kept old coffee cans beside their front doors that acted as ashtrays. Not a single renter cared about the accumulating garbage strewn about. It was an eyesore.

The stink of sewage in the air made my nose twitch. I didn’t live in a great location either, but it was a few steps up from this place. The unit we wanted was in the middle of a long row that ran perpendicular to the parking lot. It was seven thirty in the morning and blistering hot already. The July heat beat down on us, promising a nasty day of sweltering weather.

The neighborhood was quiet until a streaking toddler burst out the front door of a unit four down and ran squealing and giggling away from an angry father. The father shouted and chased after her while a woman inside the complex—the mother, I presumed—called after him. When the father caught her, he slung her over his shoulder and slapped her bare ass. I cringed, and my butt cheeks clenched. I knew that feeling all too well. I’d had my butt spanked in anger more times than I could count in my miserable life.

The kid’s piercing cry filled the air until the man went inside and slammed the door behind him.

A Miami Dolphins fleece blanket hung in the window of C.J. Whoever-the-fuck-she-was’s unit. The screen door had a long tear, and the hydraulic closer wasn’t working, so when I went to open it, I used too much strength, and it flew out of my hand, slamming against the side of the brick enclosure.

“Oops.” I cringed, glancing back at Cyrus. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

He’d been scanning the street, ensuring we weren’t being watched or followed. He cocked a brow. “I thought we were doing this quietly and carefully.”

“Ha, ha. You aren’t funny.”

“Are you going to knock or just wait to see if anyone heard you smashing the door?”

“You get awfully lippy after sex.”

He grinned, and his cheeks took on color, but he had no comment and resumed scanning the street.

I rapped on the door, unsure what to expect. We’d talked ahead of time and had decided we weren’t going inside. If this person wanted to talk, we could do it on the front stoop or not at all. At least until we got a better sense of what was going on.

No one answered.

I knocked louder and shrugged. “Maybe this was a waste of time.”

“Or maybe they’re getting the dungeon ready for us. We’re earlier than they expected. Do you think they’ll have a torture chamber?”

“You can only hope.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I know you like getting your ass smacked, so maybe there are other BDSM-y things you’d like.”

Cyrus scowled.

I chuckled and knocked a third time.

After a lengthy wait, I glanced around the neighborhood. “No one’s here. Now what?”

Cyrus opened his mouth to respond when the door flew open. I startled back a step, colliding with Cyrus. A burly, almost naked guy weighing in at over three hundred pounds glared back at us. He smelled like sour milk and eggs. His thick hair was greasy and disheveled. He had a thick matted beard and wore only tattered boxers.

“What?” he barked, his eyes narrowing.

“Um…” This wasn’t who I’d expected. If this guy was counterpart number two, I’d be shocked. “We’re looking for someone who goes by the initials C.J. A woman, I thought. But maybe not. Is that you? Are you C.J.?”

The man wiped his nose on his arm, leaving a wet streak. He passed his gaze between us. “What’s your business with Cammy?”

My heart stuttered. Cammy? Cammy as in Camilla? I didn’t have the words to ask. My mouth opened twice, but nothing came out.

Cyrus’s hand landed on the small of my back. “She left me a note and told me to meet her here. She claims she has information for us.”

The burly man focused on Cyrus, assessing him, his gaze roving his body. “Who the fuck are you?”

Cyrus held the folded note between two fingers, waving it in the guy’s face. “The man with the note. Is she here? We need to talk to her.”

The guy made a grab for the note, but Cyrus pulled it out of his reach.

“She’s sleeping.”

“Well, wake her up,” I said, finding my voice. My jaw ached from clenching it. Raw anger simmered under the surface of my skin. “Tell her her son is here.”

That got the guy’s attention. He snapped his head in my direction and looked at me with purpose like he was trying to see the similarities. There weren’t many. My mother had told me a long time ago I was the spitting image of my father.

“Give me a minute. And just so you know, I have a gun, so don’t think about causing trouble.” The guy slammed the door, leaving us on the stoop. A moment later, his roaring voice shouted for Cammy to get the fuck up.

I glanced back at Cyrus, who was watching me.

“It’s her,” I said, my voice croaking.

“Looks like.”

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

“We have to. If she knows something, it might be the only way we can clear your name.”

I blew out a breath and shook my hands. My fingers tingled. This wasn’t exactly how I’d pictured a reunion with my mother, who was supposed to be dead. It was going to take effort not to go on the defensive.

“And another thing,” I said, turning to Cyrus. “Who the hell was that guy? Her pimp? Her drug dealer? Isn’t she getting kinda old to sell herself? Jesus. What the hell? And he has a gun. Are we gonna get our heads blown off for asking questions? She started this, not me. Who the fuck does he think he is?”

“Maybe he’s your stepfather.”

“You shut your whore mouth right now. That is not funny.”

Cyrus shrugged, and my stomach turned oily at the thought.

The door opened again, and the muscles in my arms and legs seized. A knot in my belly pulled tighter and tighter. I knew that face. It was older, weathered, wrinkled in a way that spoke of a hard life. Her eyes had always been dull. They’d always seemed a bit absent. As a child, I hadn’t known better. As an adult, I recognized the toll years of drug abuse had taken on the woman at the door.

My mother.

It was her. Skeletal. Blonde hair, long like it had always been but stringy and unhealthy. Rotten teeth. A canine missing. She wore a tiny pair of shorts and a tank top. Her skin was flaky and dry, decorated with old scars, a few bruises, and newer scabs.

“River. You came.” She glanced at Cyrus. “You brought him.”

Cyrus didn’t speak. When she looked back at me and offered a smile, I huffed. “Well, you look like shit.”

“River.” Cyrus touched my arm.

I threw him off. “Well, she does. Look at her. Well and truly used and abused. You know what? I can’t do this. I don’t need your help.”

I tried to shove past Cyrus, but he caught me by the shoulder. When I fought to get free, he held on with a strength he hadn’t ever shown. “Stop,” he whispered in my ear. “We need to listen to what she has to say first. Then we can go, and you don’t ever have to come back. I promise.”

“No. I don’t want to do this. I can’t.” The last two words came out choked.

“Hey.” Cyrus rubbed his nose along my temple. “I’m with you. We’ll do it together.”

I blew out a shaky breath. “Fine. Okay, fine.”

When I turned back, the woman who was my mother, a woman who was skating the edge of fifty, stood with her arms around her middle, looking homely and sad. I had zero sympathy.

In the background, the fat man in boxers hovered by the door, smoking a cigarette and glaring at us.

“Would you like to come in?” Camilla asked.

“No. We can talk right here. Tell your fat fucking pimp to piss off. This has nothing to do with him.”

Camilla peered over her shoulder and mumbled something. The man had a word or two to say, but I didn’t listen. He handed her a pack of smokes and buggered off out of sight. She grabbed a knitted cardigan by the front door and stepped outside, closing it behind her. It was easily twenty-seven degrees, but she put on the sweater and wrapped it around her frail frame.

I backed onto the front lawn, the dried grass crunching under my running shoes. Camilla—I refused to think of her as my mother—tucked a strand of wiry hair behind her ear and plucked a cigarette from the crumpled pack, lighting up. She puffed a few times, her dull gaze never leaving me.

The silence between us hung in the air like an oppressive toxic cloud. I didn’t want to breathe it in and poison my lungs, but it went on for too long, and my skin itched.

“Are we just going to stand here, or are you going to tell us what’s going on?”

“God, you look like your daddy. It’s uncanny.”

“Fuck off. Don’t talk to me about that piece of shit. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a father. In fact, I don’t have a mother either.”

She nodded, unaffected by my snarky outburst as she drew on the cigarette. Her lips were deeply wrinkled, and her nails were yellow and blunt. She looked worn out. Used. Tired. It didn’t shock me. Not with the life she’d chosen to live.

“Look, Camilla,” Cyrus said, cutting in. “River has been accused of murder. Someone set him up, and if we don’t figure it out fast, he could go to jail for the rest of his life. You said you knew something. So please talk. Help us.”

She assessed Cyrus while she smoked. When only the filter remained, she flicked it away and blew out a cloud, hacking the way a long-time smoker hacked. “I fucked up.”

“What else is new,” I mumbled.

Cyrus held up a hand, asking me to stay quiet.

“How? What do you mean?”

She looked at me, and a world of sorrow and pain flashed through her pale green eyes. I wanted to believe this woman was not my blood, but I knew better. She’d come for irregular visits when I was young. She’d made a piss-poor effort to act the role of a mother for our forty-five-minute sessions. But it had always been a scam. She was a drug-addicted whore who had no intention of ever trying to get me back.

“Your daddy was a regular client when I was young.”

I opened my mouth to argue, not wanting to hear wistful tales, but Cyrus shot daggers in my direction, so I clamped my teeth shut until my jaw hurt and paced to expel energy.

Camilla watched. “I was twenty when I got pregnant with you. He’d been a client for years. I was seventeen when it started. I knew it was him who knocked me up because we had a bit of a slip-up one night.”

“I don’t want to hear it. Spare me the details.”

She sniffled and coughed into her arm. “When I told him I was pregnant, he wanted me to have an abortion. He said he’d take me to a clinic. He’d pay for it, but I refused. He got angry.” She shrugged. “I didn’t care. Whatever. There were plenty more places to earn a buck, and I knew he’d get tired of me soon enough anyhow. I was getting too old for his tastes. He preferred the barely legals. He harassed me about it for a while, then he dropped me and found someone else.

“When you were born, and they took you away, I approached him. I knew where he lived. I wasn’t supposed to know, but he took me there once when he forgot his wallet. He parked down the road and told me to stay in the car. But I watched which house was his.

“Anyhow, I told him I needed money for rehab. I told him he had a newborn son, and they’d taken you away from me. I wanted you back, but the only way was if I cleaned myself up. He was pissed I’d gone to his house. He told me to fuck off and never come back, so I threatened to tell his wife about his habits.” Camilla shrugged, smirking like it was the logical next step to solve her problem.

“Jesus Christ.” I tugged a hand through my hair. This was my mother, ladies and gentlemen. She was a real winner.

“He paid for my rehab. Sent me to a clinic in town on one condition. That I would never come back.”

“Lot of good that did, huh? Came out of rehab the same way you went in. Ran right back to the life, shooting up and snorting drugs or whatever it was you did.”

She picked at an old scab on her arm. “Shit happens, River. I tried. I really did.”

“Right. For what? Five fucking minutes?”

Cyrus shook his head. It was subtle and meant for me, and it worked to bring my blood from boiling to a gentle simmer.

“I went back to him despite what he said. I knew he didn’t want his wife to know, so I knew I had the upper hand. He had money, and I deserved some of it. I had his kid.”

Who you weren’t raising! I wanted to scream.

“I made him give me money regularly. Told him it was for you. Told him if he didn’t, I’d expose him.”

“And you used every penny on drugs.”

She shrugged. “You learn to get by however you can. I needed cash, and he had plenty of it. There was no reason he couldn’t share.”

“You blackmailed him?”

“Yes, I did. For years. And if he grew uncooperative, I’d show up at his house and remind him what was at stake. His habits hadn’t changed. I knew all about them. I still worked. One time, I left a few pictures of you in his mailbox. You were a toddler at the time, but there was no mistaking who your daddy was. I wanted his wife to find them, but I don’t think that happened. I wrote a little message on the back too. Your son, River Justice Adam Jenkins. Then I added your date of birth. You see, he had a kid with his wife, but the kid was older than you, so I wanted his wife to know you were born while he was with her. That way he couldn’t lie and claim you came first or anything.”

“Can we cut to the end of this lovely tale please?”

Cyrus spoke. “So you spent years blackmailing River’s father?”

“Yes. He paid for another round of rehab when River was in his teens. I thought that time he truly wanted to help me. He begged me to stay at the center. Begged me to get better and fight to get you back. He wanted me to have a better life and settle down. It was the first time he called you his son. He said, ‘Please, Cammy, get better. Get him back. Be a mother to him. Take care of our son. He needs a parent, not foster care.’ I told him he could have done that from the start, but he’d refused.”

Camilla pulled another cigarette from the pack and lit up. She puffed away, her gaze lost in the past. “One day at the end of last year, he cut me off. Clean. No warning. He said he was done and there would be no more money. He was making changes and cleaning himself up. It was lies. I knew he was still sleeping with young girls. You can’t just stop your ways that easily. Plus, we all talk. He might have stopped coming down our street, but rumors circulated. We’d all heard of those apps. I knew he’d just changed his methods. I kept tabs on him. I saw him a few times leaving the hotel with them. They were nicer girls. Cleaner, but still the same. He has a type.”

“Blonde, skinny, relatively young?”

Camilla drew on the cigarette, squinting and nodding at Cyrus. “Yep. I decided it was time to blow up his world. No more being nice. If he was going to cut me off, he could deal with the repercussions of his actions. His money was all I had. I wasn’t working the street anymore. Too old.”

“You are un-fucking-believable,” I said.

She ignored me and went on. “I showed up at his house one night. There was a For Sale sign on his lawn. I realized what he was doing. If he moved, he knew I’d never find him. If I couldn’t find him, my leverage was gone. The threats would be useless.

“I stormed his house. His wife was home. She heard me. I know she did, but she didn’t do anything. Your daddy grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the street out of sight of the house. He shoved me around a bit, told me if I didn’t stop, he would hunt you down and kill you. ‘How do you like that, Cammy?’ he asked me. ‘You keep telling me he’s so important to you, so how do you like that?’ Is that what I wanted? A dead son? His eyes got scary. I’d never seen him like that before. He was losing it.

“When I tried to fight him off, he slapped me hard across the face and shoved me to the ground, screaming, ‘Do you understand what I’m telling you, you worthless whore? I never wanted him. He can die for all I care. You can too.’ He was mad, like, the crazy kind. I knew he was serious. He was going to come after both of us.”

Camilla smoked a minute before continuing. “He moved. I don’t know where to. I stopped harassing him. I had no choice. But a few months later, all this shit happened. The girls who died in that hotel. They were working girls. From the app. The same girls he’d fucked recently. The same ones I’d seen him with. I think he was scared. I got under his skin. He was eliminating them one by one. Cleaning up his mess. When I heard what happened and that you’d been charged with their murders, I knew. I knew he’d done this to you. It was revenge. I pushed too hard. He cracked.”

“What about you? Why didn’t he come after you too?” Cyrus asked.

A good question.

She shrugged. “He doesn’t know where I am. This place isn’t in my name. I don’t work the street anymore, and the girls would never tell. Plus, I’m careful.”

The screen door slammed against the wall, drawing our attention. The fat man poked his head outside, still wearing boxers. “Where’s all the fucking beer? I thought we just got a new case?”

“Under the counter.”

“Why isn’t it in the fridge?”

“I don’t fucking know. Drink it warm. What does it matter?”

“Stupid bitch.”

The door slammed, and Camilla rolled her eyes. Beer at eight in the morning? Wow, these were some real winners.

“Is that your pimp?” I asked.

She laughed, which made her cough. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m too old for that shit now. I told you, I’m off the street. That’s Tim, my boyfriend. He takes care of me. He won’t let your daddy hurt me.”

A tight lump formed in my throat. “Lovely. I’m done here.”

“Wait.” Cyrus touched my arm. “What’s his name? River’s dad.”

“Justice Adams.”

Both my middle names. I wanted to scream.

“And you don’t know where he lives?”

“No. I have his old address, but he hasn’t lived there in more than six months.”

“What else can you tell us about him?”

“Nothing. He wasn’t a talker.”

“You don’t know where he works? Nothing?”

“No.”

“What does he drive?” I asked.

“A fancy black car. Or he did the last time I saw him.”

“A Bentley?” Cyrus asked.

Camilla shrugged. “Don’t know cars well enough to answer that. Maybe.”

Of course she didn’t. I wanted to roll my eyes.

Cyrus grew ponderous, and I knew he was referencing all the information we’d gathered, seeing what else he might extract from my mother. “You said you saw him leaving the hotel with a few young girls. Destination? The same one where they were murdered?”

“Yup. He takes all his girls there. Even back when he was my client. We went there all the time. He doesn’t like scummy motels. Too good for that.”

“Can you remember his old address?” I asked.

“He isn’t there anymore.”

“I know, but maybe I can figure out where he moved.”

Camilla frowned and scratched her arm. “I know how to get there, but I’m not sure of the numbers. Hang on. Let me ask Tim.”

She retreated inside, and I let out a long gust of air as I stared at the pale blue sky overhead. Sweat dripped from my temples, and my T-shirt stuck to me. If she was right, my father was a fucking nutcase, and he was out to get me.

“Are you all right?” Cyrus asked, his voice cutting into the quiet day.

“Not really. It’s not every day you learn your father hates you so much he’d frame you for murder.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? You didn’t do anything.”

We waited in silence.

Camilla returned and handed me a slip of paper. “Tim thinks this is the address. It’s the right street. Best I can do.”

“Do you have a phone number?” Cyrus asked. “In case we have more questions.”

She shook her head. “Got cut off when we didn’t pay the bill for a few months.”

But she could afford beer. I gritted my teeth.

“Why haven’t you taken this to the police?” I snapped. “Why, when you knew I was in trouble, did you let them arrest me?”

Camilla tucked a strand of stringy hair behind her ear and hugged herself. “I don’t have a very good reputation with the cops. I’ve done some time over the years, and I try to avoid them to be honest. They wouldn’t believe me anyhow. Justice reported me for harassment one time a few years ago when I showed up at his house. They have me on file. They’d just think I was at it again, trying to get his ass in trouble.”

She shrugged. “I got Tim to drive me to St. Thomas when I heard you were there. I thought maybe I could talk to you, tell you what I knew, and you could figure it out on your own. Tell the cops, you know? But that place. They wouldn’t let me see you. They said it would be complicated, and I’d need to go through a process. I was going to approach you when you were out in the yard that one day. I saw you, but then I realized how many security officers were around. I didn’t want to get in trouble. Tim said they’d arrest me too if I wasn’t careful. So we started that process they talked about. We had to wait a few days before they’d let me see you. Then, when I saw the news that you broke out, I left a note on his car.” She gestured at Cyrus.

“How did you know I helped him?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t. It was a last-ditch effort. I knew River was innocent. I knew his daddy was responsible. I knew someone helped him get out of there. You’re a brain doctor, right? I figured, if anyone was going to see the truth, it would be you. If I was wrong, I figured you’d either take the note to the police or toss it. If I was right and you knew where River was, I hoped it would help you believe him and find justice.

“When I got back to London, it bothered me too much that I hadn’t gotten to tell River anything. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and went to his apartment, thinking he might show up there eventually and I could slip a note under his door. I arrived just as your car was pulling away and driving down the street. I saw it. I knew your car. I knew then I had to be right, and you must have been helping him. But I was too late.

“When I got home and told Tim, he said I should try that bar you liked. He said he read in the papers that it was one of your frequent hangouts. He said if you were going around asking questions for River, you might go there. So I left a note with the bartender. It was a long shot.”

“Hey! I’m hungry,” Fatso Tim barked from the front door. “Get your ass in here and cook. How long’s this going to take?”

“Yeah, I’m coming.”

Camilla shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got.”

I wasn’t sure what to say in response. It wasn’t every day you learned your crack-whore mother pissed your father off enough he decided to frame you for murder as he cleaned up his mess so his wife wouldn’t find out he was a cheating bastard.

Cyrus thanked Camilla and took me by the arm, gently guiding me toward the car. I didn’t resist.

There were still a lot of personal questions to ask, but I no longer cared.

I didn’t say goodbye.

Neither did she.