Fighting Conviction by Greer Rivers

Chapter Five

“It’s Burgess.”

“Yes?” The gruff male voice on the other end wasn’t angry enough for Neal Burgess to detect the accent, but he knew it was only a matter of seconds before the inevitable. No conversation with the Russian ended well.

Neal rounded the hallway corner before immediately entering his office and shutting the door behind him. He leaned against it to relieve his tired bones before answering. “BlackStone Securities was here again…”

“… And?”

“And I-uh, I’m reportin’ it, like you asked?”

The long, insufferable sigh on the other end grated at Neal’s nerves. “I told you to report to me if they know anything. Do they?”

Neal tugged at his mustache. It needed a trim. “No,” he finally answered.

The boss wasn’t going to be happy Neal had nothing to share. Again. But if the men of BlackStone Securities insisted on being tight-lipped about what they knew, then what was he supposed to do about it?

“Do they suspect anything about the party?”

Neal thought back to the conversation before answering. “No, sir.”

His fingertips grazed down his uniform, remembering late to press the button on his chest before searching the lower pockets. The loud beep of the body worn camera was muffled by all the stacks of paperwork in his office. Although he was an investigator, Neal still wore the duty-issued vest. Bulky as hell, but it was more convenient for his needs than the tweed blazer and ironed button-down Hollywood portrayals.

Still waiting for a reply on the phone, Neal made his way around the cluttered room, dodging the files haphazardly stacked on the floor in chaotic heaps. He glanced through the indoor windows that gave him a view of the officers milling around in the precinct. When he was sure no one was watching, he carefully pulled the drawstrings so the brittle and yellowed slats wouldn’t break on the blinds.

When he had his thoughts to himself, protected by the flimsy barrier between him and his nosy colleagues, Neal plopped on his threadbare desk chair. With the force of his collapse, he rolled back against the wall and groaned at the worsening of the whooshing pulse in his skull. The annoying buzzing in his right ear wasn’t helping, either.

Wait, not buzzing.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?”

“No, Burgess. I do not fucking repeat myself. Pay attention you worthless piece of shit.”

Neal winced as the Russian accent came out and patted the pill bottle in his pocket. The motion calmed his pulse to a steady beat rather than his usual staccato that threatened a heart attack at any moment. It was amazing how the simple gesture created a façade of relaxation, even if only for a moment.

It was nothing like the pills though.

Eleven.

That’s all he had left in this particular bottle. He kept track of the number and never forgot, always knowing when he’d have to refill from the dwindling stash at home. He pulled the orange cylinder out of its pocket and stroked his thumb over the worn label.

Cicilia Burgess.

It was a miracle there was any sticker still stuck to the bottle, considering how long he’d been shoving it in and out of his pockets.

Neal swiped aside paperwork to reveal his coffee-stained, empty desk calendar. It’d been too long since he last took his medicine, but he wanted to make sure he had enough. He moved the phone to hold it between his shoulder and ear as he twisted open the bottle with one hand—a reflex at this point. He shuffled out the tablets, one by one, to make sure he’d remembered correctly.

One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven…

“That should do,” Neal whispered into the void.

“Burgess!” The screaming in his ear made Neal jump. The pitter-patter of pills scattering across his desk sent a shock of panic down Neal’s spine that rivaled the anxiety he felt when the Russian yelled at him.

“What is that sound?”

“Shit, sorry. Hold on.” Neal cursed and dropped his cell phone onto a stack of papers and scurried his fingertips over the desk, searching for each tablet.

One… two-three-four… five… six… seven-eight-nine… ten…

“Where’s eleven?” he mumbled before repeating the question to himself over and over again. He dropped below his desk, ignoring the crack of arthritic pain in his knees at his poor landing, instead feeling along the patchy green carpet for any sign of the missing tablet.

A fuzzy noise from above vibrated the wooden walls around him and Neal crawled backward, using the desk for assistance to stagger up to his seat.

“Damnit,” he muttered. Worrying over his missing pill had made him completely forget he’d been on the phone with the Russian. He had to get his shit together. All his focus had been zapped away by the BlackStone meeting, and now all he could think about was whether he had enough pills to take one immediately.

“Investigator Burgess.” He braced himself for what was going to come next.

The male’s voice on the other line was too loud and angry to understand and parse out each word, but his accent was unmistakable.

“Will you stop yellin’… please?” Neal wished he could give the asshole a taste of his own medicine, but the man made good on his threats. That alone was enough to keep Neal’s damn mouth shut. And sweat for another bar.

And one of them’s missin’.

“We were on the phone you incompetent mudak and you disappeared! What could possibly be so fucking important you would interrupt our conversation?”

“I-uh, I dropped somethin’. I apologize—”

A groan on the other end scratched at Neal’s eardrums. “Let me guess. A small rec-fucking-tangular pill?”

Neal tugged at his collar and loosened the vest now restricting his breath. “No. Of course not. I’m at work.”

“Fuck! That is it. I am cutting you off.”

An anvil of dread dropped into Neal’s stomach and he reached for one of the pills, rolling it between his fingertips for comfort.

“What’re you talkin’ about? There’s no need for that. It was a file. I dropped a file. That’s all.”

“Right.” The man cursed. “What do you think? That I am the fucking durak? I am cutting you off. Whatever you have left is all you have until you clean yourself up. You are no use to me high and I do not need my contact being a liability.”

Neal swore and ripped his phone from his ear to wind it back and throw—

“All you have to do is clean yourself up. You can do that. You’ve been doin’ this for years. No need to worry about it now. Just dial it back, one step at a time. We’ll do it together.”

The gentle, feminine voice flowing in his mind made him long to remember what peace felt like. At one point, he’d found solace in her encouragement. But it’d been years since he’d believed the words she’d never said.

“We can do this,” Neal whispered, fighting for conviction, and brought the phone back to his ear. He pasted on a confident smile, as if the person on the other end of the line was in the room. “No problem. Just one last buy to… um… safely cut myself off. I hardly even need them anymore.”

While tugging at his collar again, he looked around for his water bottle. Unable to find it, he rolled his chair to his mini fridge and bent to retrieve one.

“No. I am cutting you off… for good,” the caller spat out. “We need to move on. I do not have all day to console a junkie. Is that all you called me for? To tell me BlackStone knows nothing?”

Burgess nodded and cleared his throat. “Y-yes, sir. Nothin’ to report.”

A huff of breath into the receiver filled the phone line again. “You realize this has been a goddamn waste of time. I do not believe for one second BlackStone is clueless. They must be bluffing. Or maybe you have lost your touch, detective.”

Neal’s silent curse and accompanying gesture made him fumble with the phone. Once he brought it back up to his good ear, he remembered there had been something they needed to talk about. “There was somethin’ they said. The little blonde who went missin’—you know she’s one of them’s sister—”

“Of course we know that now. We never would have chosen her if we had known then. Fear of reprisal is the only reason why we are no longer interested in her. It would have been helpful of you to give us that information last year before this whole fiasco went sideways.”

“I went off the tips I received, damnit. The one’s y’all gave me. I didn’t know who all was involved—”

“Fucking idiot,” the man muttered.

“Well, you say you ain’t interested in her, but are you gonna try to pull the same stunt at the party again this year?”

“That is none of your concern. We ask the questions, you tell us the answers. That is the deal.”

“That’s how we got in trouble last time. I’m doin’ things different now.” The man on the other line started to grumble, but Neal wasn’t finished. “I thought all that was over with. That you’d moved on from Ashland County with that shit. Just gone back to the drugs.”

“Naivety is only attractive in females, Neal.” A low huff of laughter resounded over the phone, making Neal shiver.

He should’ve kept his mouth shut, but his need to know outweighed his self-preservation. “Her brother said she thinks she’s bein’ followed. Is that true? If it is, maybe y’all oughta stop.”

Neal sat up in his chair and sorted out the pills again. He tried to listen. The answer was important. But he still needed to find that last one. Now that he had a limit, none of them could go unaccounted for.

“… we have lost interest in her but we keep tabs on people who know our business. From what you have said BlackStone knows, she does not remember anything of value and we want to keep it that way. Keeping our distance and a low profile ensures our privacy.”

“So… you’ll leave her alone?”

“Are you fucking deaf too? I am not having her stalked! She is a liability unless she falls into our laps. We might be able to make her useful but only if she were to stick her nose where it does not belong. At that point we would be cutting loose ends. Even then there is the possibility of exposure we cannot afford.”

That was good. One less thing Neal had to worry about. There was already too much on his plate.

Neal mopped the sweat accumulating on his forehead with the back of his sleeve. Fingers shaking, he carefully put one pill in his hand and swallowed it down with the water. The small lump accompanying the cool gulp down his throat lifted the anvil on his chest so he could breathe again. He sighed as heavily as his ol’ smoker’s lungs would allow, leaning all the way back in his chair until his head rested against the wall.

“Alright, well I think that’s everything.”

“Fucking imbecile.”

The call disconnected and Neal stared at the phone in his hand as he wondered how his life had gotten to the point where he had to depend on that Russian bastard.

Maybe the Russian was right. Maybe he should be cut off.

Despite his thoughts, he tapped each pill, slowly putting each one back in Cici’s old medicine bottle. He counted them back into the bottle.

One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine…

He’d have to figure out where the missing pill was ASAP. He had a limit now… But one more couldn’t hurt.

Rather than deposit it into the medicine bottle, Neal popped the last tablet into his mouth. He’d earned it. Talking to the Russian always took him to his wit’s end.

He bent his head back and embraced the calm flowing down his throat and rooting into his blood. The promise of peace and quiet would soon rush through his veins. In the meantime, he pulled out his lighter and flicked it on and off. It was a habit he’d developed years ago as a smoker and it’d become a mindless thing for his hands to do to pass the time. Resting his eyes, his head at an awkward angle at the back of his chair, he tried not to think about the one pill he hadn’t found yet.

Eight left. We’ll find the other one later, won’t we, Cici?

The fog of his memory revealed Cici’s sad brown eyes and he ached to see her smile one more time. He hadn’t deserved one in a long time. Too long. Even before the world became too much for her to endure.

It was one of the reasons why she’d left it in the first place.

Neal squinched his eyes closed against the burn inside until finally, cooling euphoria washed over him, and he did his best to forget the woman he’d damned with his love.